


Blood Moon Rising

by Woland



Series: The Slayer Chronicles [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Angst, Aziraphale is the Chosen One, Crowley is..., Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gabriel is not a nice person, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slayer Aziraphale, There are some liberties with vampire lore here, Vampire AU, Vampire Slayers, Vampires, a bit of humor, all for the sake of greater fun though, and of course there shall be the obligatory whump and angst, well... you'll find out later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27376054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woland/pseuds/Woland
Summary: Vampire activity around the town of Tadfield has begun to see an unusual spike.  Vampires that Aziraphale's team has been encountering lately seem to be getting more aggressive, more violent, more... desperate even.  Something is happening.  Something is coming.  Something even the Chosen One may not be able to stop.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Slayer Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999774
Comments: 86
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so this is a bit of an old idea I'm toying with here, one I decided to revamp (re-vamp haha!) for this fandom. Not sure exactly how it will turn out, but if it is successful, I hope for this to become a two-part series.  
> The lore here is borrowed partly from "Buffy", partly from "Moonlight", and partly from my own twisted imagination. Mixed, shaken and stirred.
> 
> Small teaser chapter for you all to see what you think.

“What an entirely unpleasant fellow.”

Aziraphale huffs with displeasure, stepping back from the twitching howling mess at his feet as he slips the silver dagger back into its sheath. The vampire jerks forward, spasms. One clawed hand – already cross-webbed by blue-veined streaks of the deadly poison that’s ravaging its body – scrabbles to grasp at Aziraphale’s pant leg. 

But the silver has already done its job, and the creature’s movements cease mid-reach. It grows still, its snarling face frozen in a grotesque, open-fanged mask of hateful agony. Three days from now it will be nothing but a pile of ash to be scattered by the wind.

Beside him Newton blows out a breath, shouldering his crossbow. “I’ve never seen them this aggressive before,” he mutters, keeping a wary eye on the dark mouth of the alley that their assailant had come from.

“Or that persistent,” Anathema chimes in. “I’m telling you, Zira, there’s something going on in the underworld. This one’s aura was just as distorted and just as hungry as the three others this week. And the attacks are intensifying.”

“Aye!” Shadwell, their self-appointed Sergeant Vampire-finder, grunts, squatting next to the dead vampire. “Twenty victims this month alone, Mr. Fell. These unholy beasts of yers have gotten completely out of hand.”

“ _My_ beasts?” Aziraphale bristles at the accusation. “I assure you, my good fellow, my only association with these creatures is the brand upon my bloodline.”

It wasn’t the first time that Shadwell had thrown in his face the fact that vampire attacks have become more frequent with his arrival in Tadfield. Aziraphale’s argument that the arrival of the Chosen One was bound to attract some unwanted attention from the undead did not seem to sway the old curmudgeon. For months since Aziraphale’s arrival, the man continued to grouse, insisting that his Vampire-Finders Army was more than adequate in “fighting them there beasties” and that they needed “no help from no Southern Pansy, thank you very much!” 

It irritated Aziraphale to no end. And, truthfully, if it weren’t for the fact that he was Called Upon to come here years ago (though for reasons yet unclear), he would have packed up his things long ago and moved happily back to his quiet little bookshop in Soho. No vampires, no midnight hunts, no motley group of vigilante vampire hunters that insisted on being social with him when all he ever wanted to do after an exhausting hunt was to return home and curl up with a cup of cocoa and a good book. 

He never asked to be the Chosen One, the One-in-a-Generation Vampire Slayer. Yes, his family came from a long and proud line of Slayers, but he would have been much happier if God had chosen someone else from his many brothers and sisters to be The One. Someone like Gabriel perhaps. He’s fairly certain Gabriel would have been happier with that choice also.

As things stood, however, the decision to leave Tadfield was no more up to him than was the choice to stop being the Slayer. So he remained where he was, doing the job he was born to do. And over time things became less… unpleasant. He became familiar with and respected by most everyone in their small town. His unlikely (and initially unwanted) colleagues – whom he tried, unsuccessfully, to veer away from the dangerous profession, insisting on the simple fact that mere mortals such as themselves with no advantages of strength, speed and durability afforded a born slayer would be putting themselves at high and wholly unnecessary risk – became his good friends. Even Shadwell himself became less irritable toward him (though that change of heart likely came from the fact he managed to save the old pillock from getting his neck ripped out by a wild fledgling about four months into his sojourn in Tadfield).

But perhaps the most important reason for his improved outlook on his current assignment was the fact that he… well… he _met_ someone. A devilishly handsome someone with a charming sharp-toothed smile, gorgeously styled hair the color of the setting sun, absolutely bewitching honey-gold eyes that Aziraphale had chance to glimpse on the few occasions when they were not hidden behind a ubiquitous pair of sunglasses, and a lithe body whose exquisite serpentine grace made Aziraphale feel something decidedly unprofessional somewhere low in his belly. A mysterious stranger who barged in on one of Aziraphale’s hunts a little over six years ago, effectuating a rather dramatic rescue that involved him jumping from the balcony onto the back of a vampire who had snuck up on Aziraphale and was about to strike him from behind. A natural hunter with agility and speed that rival Aziraphale’s own, and a truly uncanny ability to show up at just the right time to help the Slayer out of the tightest of spots. A stimulating conversation partner during the increasingly rare but oh so treasured hunt-free evenings they spent sitting in his living room, sharing a bottle of Aziraphale’s finest vintage. A fascinating puzzle of a man. A… dare he hope… friend. _Crowley…_

“What about Crowley?”

He blinks, thrown by the unexpected question that rips him out of his pleasant musings. Stares, bemused, at Anathema who’s giving him an all-too-knowing smirk. “What… uh…” He shakes off the momentary fluster. “What _about_ Crowley?” 

“Well, he tends to be pretty well informed on these things.” She gestures at the slowly decaying heap at their feet. “Maybe he knows something about what’s going on.”

“Damn suspicious that fella, I always say,” Shadwell grumbles from somewhere behind him, because it’s a matter of personal pride for that man to insert his opinion into every conversation. “Shows up outta nowhere. Dresses like no self-respecting gentleman. An utter flash bastard.”

Aziraphale tugs at his vest, suppressing a flare of irritation at the man. “I will thank you not to insult my friend, Sergeant,” he warns testily. Then turns his attention back to Anathema. “I do believe you’re right, dear girl. Crowley does seem to have his ear to the ground, so to speak, when it comes to vampire activity. It is possible that he might have some insight as to what we’re dealing with here. I shall give him a ring when I get home.”

The prospect of talking to Crowley and possibly meeting with the man sends a thrill of excitement through his very essence, and he can’t quite help a pleased little smile that tugs at his lips. He also quite suddenly can’t wait to get home. 

“Well, good show everyone. Exceptional effort all around. Job well done.” He claps his hands, pumps a congratulatory fist in the air with more enthusiasm than the occasion probably requires. “Ah, I best be off now. Calls to make, research to do, you know how it is. Mind how you all go.”

And he takes off, hurrying back toward his faithful old clunker of a car. If he notices the way Anathema rolls her eyes after him, he doesn’t say a word.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wherein we get to catch a glimpse of Gabe the Wanker and enjoy a breakneck ride through the countryside courtesy of Crowley.

Chapter 2

“This is highly irregular, Gabriel. I don’t think–”

_“It’s not your job to think, Sunshine,”_ Gabriel cuts him off, disdainfully dismissive, sweeping his objections aside like he always does. _“You’re not a strategist, you’re a soldier. A slayer.”_ Somehow Gabriel manages to make the word sound like an insult. _“Why you were chosen for such an important mission when there are much better qualified candidates out there is beyond me, but we are stuck with you_ for now _.”_ Something in the way he says that last part makes a shiver of apprehension run down Aziraphale’s spine. _“But the least you can do is let those of us with the knowhow handle the important stuff.”_

Aziraphale grits his teeth, his hand tightening around the phone, knuckles turning white. “I just… I don’t understand why this has to be so complicated. If this individual has vital information about the spike of vampire activity in Tadfield, why can’t he meet with me somewhere here in town? Why have me come out to some abandoned convent in the middle of nowhere?”

_“Secrecy, Aziraphale. He’s of an old noble name, he’s well known in certain circles. If he shows his face in Tadfield, somebody might recognize him and tip off the vamps.”_

“Okay, that’s fair. But picking a place an hour outside of town? Is it really prudent for me to drive that far out of Tadfield for Lord knows how long when the attacks are becoming so frequent? Who will be looking out for the people here?”

_“They’ll survive without you for a few hours, Aziraphale. You’re not indispensable.”_ Aziraphale can almost hear Gabriel rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. _“Besides, don’t you have a vigilante vampire hunting squad there?”_

“They’re not slayers, Gabriel. They are regular humans who shouldn’t have to be putting themselves in such danger just so I could go on a day trip!”

_“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. I’m sure they’ll do fine. Remember, he’s expecting you in an hour. Don’t be late now. Ciao.”_ And he hangs up before Aziraphale has a chance to respond.

Aziraphale puts down the phone, his good mood, his excitement in anticipation of Crowley’s imminent arrival – ruined. But that’s Gabriel in a nutshell, isn’t it. Always ruining everything that holds even the slightest bit of pleasure for Aziraphale.

He sighs, rubs a heavy hand down his face. Well, there was nothing for it, he supposes. Might as well get ready. The earlier he leaves, the earlier he comes back. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he can make it back before nightfall and he won’t have to worry about Anathema and the others being on their own with the monsters.

He stands, picks up his coat. Throws one last glance around the room as if trying to ascertain if he’d forgotten something. Then grabs his keys and walks out to his car.

And runs straight into Crowley.

***

“Why can’t I come with you?”

“I _told_ you, Gabriel said that–”

“To hell with what that wanker said. Why do you have to listen to any of it anyway?”

Aziraphale lets out a tired sigh, leans back against the side of his car. It’s an old argument between him and Crowley. Ever since one evening about four years ago when Aziraphale, his tongue loosened with wine and good food, had carelessly let slip how hurt he found himself on occasions by Gabriel’s treatment.

“He’s my older brother, Crowley. Head of the family. He knows what’s best,” he repeats the same old spiel he’s given him hundreds of times before. It doesn’t sound any more convincing to his own ears this time around.

Crowley looks like he wants to argue, then seems to think better of it. He pinches his lips, nodding at something in his own thoughts. Then smiles at Aziraphale, wide and disarming. “Well, how about I drive you, hmm? You know I drive much faster than you. I’ll have you there and back in no time.”

“Crowley…”

“I’ll buy you lunch on the way back.” Crowley spreads his arms out to the sides in a gesture of enticement. “Any place you wanna go. Whaddya say, angel?”

_Damn that man_. How does he always seem to know just how to tempt him?

Aziraphale blows out a slow, defeated breath. Shakes his head with a fondly exasperated smile. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Angel?” Crowley shrugs, the corner of his mouth pulling into a lopsided smirk. “I mean, look at you, Zira. All soft and glowy and kind one minute and then scary, deadly, bring-the-wrath-of-god-upon-you vampire slayer the next. It fits.”

“You’re impossible.”

The smirk widens. “Does that mean you agree to my proposal?”

Aziraphale bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from grinning back. “Just driving, right? You promise not to go in there with me?”

Crowley throws up a three-finger salute. “Scout’s Honor!” he declares with tongue-in-cheek solemnity.

“I’m fairly sure you were never even _in_ the Scouts, my dear boy.”

Crowley’s mouth flies open in an expression of mock outrage that swiftly morphs into an honest to goodness pout. “You wound me, angel.” He presses his hand against his chest with dramatic flare, stumbling back a step for complete effect.

Aziraphale rolls his eyes at the display. “Get in the car, you fiend,” he grumbles good-naturedly.

Crowley’s answering smile is bright enough to block out the sun. “After you.”

***

“Do you know anything about the increased vampire activity in and around Tadfield?”

For the past twenty minutes Crowley’s been barreling down the highway at the speed Aziraphale never thought was possible to achieve in a 1933 Bentley, and Aziraphale, who was hanging on to the grab handle for dear life, decided that the best way to distract himself from thoughts of his imminent destruction at the hands of this flame-haired maniac was to strike up a conversation.

Crowley jerks the wheel to the right as they come upon a bend in the road, and the car squeals into the turn with a screeching, rubber-smoking swivel. 

Aziraphale squeezes his eyes shut.

“I’ve been out of town the past couple weeks, angel, sorry. But I _have_ heard that vampires are converging on Tadfield. Don’t know the reason yet.”

Aziraphale risks opening an eye and instantly regrets it as he finds Crowley looking back at him with a questioningly raised eyebrow. And all Aziraphale can think of at that moment is that Crowley’s decidedly NOT looking where he’s supposed to, which is…

“The road!” he croaks out, blindly stabbing a finger in the general direction of the windshield. “Watch the road!”

Crowley shrugs with infuriating nonchalance but does as he’s told, a teasing smirk playing on his lips.

“Is that why Gabe the Wanker wants you to see that lord fella?”

“Count,” he corrects automatically, letting out a small breath of relief as he spots the red-brick silhouette of the Tadfield Manor up in the distance. “And, yes, it is. I’m hoping that he can shed some light on what is going on.”

Crowley hums something unintelligible, and a few short minutes later the Bentley bursts onto the manor’s grounds and skids to a gravel-spraying stop. 

“We’re here.”

“Right.” Aziraphale waits for his stomach to settle back into its designated area. Forces his fingers to unclench from their death grip on the grab handle. Manages a wan smile for Crowley’s sake. “Well, thank you, my dear. I best get a wiggle on then.”

He clambers out of the car on wobbly legs, wondering briefly if this is how sailors feel when they take their first steps on solid ground after months at sea. He closes his eyes briefly to center himself and pushes away from the car.

The manor looms up ahead – a sprawling, weed-covered structure of fire-scorched brick and gaping holes of windows. It feels… unsettling to him, unwelcoming. Spooky.

Still, he’s being expected, so…

He tugs at his vest – an unconscious nervous habit of his. Starts determinedly in the direction of the manor.

And stumbles to a halt as a familiar hand grabs him by the arm with unexpected force.

“What are you doing?” he hisses, rounding on Crowley with all the indignation of a man deceived. “You promised me that you would stay in the car!”

But Crowley shows no sign of remorse for breaking his promise. He’s not even looking at Aziraphale for that matter. All of the man’s attention is drawn inexplicably toward the manor.

“We gotta go back,” he says, the sudden urgency in his voice underscored by the unmistakable tension that sharpens every line of his body. He reminds Aziraphale of a coiled snake preparing to strike. “ _Now_ , angel. Get back in the car.”

“Nonsense.” Aziraphale frowns in annoyance. “We’ve only just got here, and I have an appointment to keep.” 

He places his free hand on top of Crowley’s with the intention of pushing it off. But Crowley’s grip tightens in response, which serves to annoy Aziraphale even further.

“There’s… there’s someone in that house that…”

“Yes.” Aziraphale yanks harder, finally managing to dislodge Crowley’s grip. “The man I am supposed to meet with. Now if you would be so kind as to go back to the car, I shall–”

“Lisssten to me!” Crowley plants himself on the path before him, blocking his view of the house. “The person in that house… he… It’s not human. You can’t go in there!”

Aziraphale’s patience is rapidly approaching its limit. “Need I remind you, my dear, that, as the Slayer, it is my _job_ to deal with creatures that are not human? I can handle myself.”

He makes to push his way past Crowley, but the other slides backwards, slipping once more into his path.

“Not with him you can’t.” Crowley raises his hands again, reaching for him pleadingly almost. “Trust me, angel, please, _please_ , trust me. Just… just go back to the car.” There’s a naked, desperate urgency in his voice that makes Aziraphale pause.

He presses his lips together. Flicks a speculative glance toward the manor over Crowley’s shoulder, before narrowing his gaze suspiciously on Crowley’s face.

“What _exactly_ do you know, Crowley? What haven’t you told me?”

Crowley hesitates, a certain vulnerability in his features that Aziraphale has never seen before. His jaw works silently a moment, then he nods, mouth thinning out into a pale, determined line.

“I’ll tell you,” he promises, voice tight. “Everything you wanna know. Just… get in the car. Please.”

Aziraphale hesitates another moment, watching him intently. Crowley has never given him a reason not to trust him before, and Aziraphale has learned to rely on the man’s instincts when it came to dealing with vampires. And now seeing him so uncharacteristically frantic, so spooked, well, it unsettles Aziraphale, too. So he relents with a short nod that Crowley accepts with a full-body twitch of relief, and turns back in the direction of the car. 

An instant later his ears pick up a soft hissing sound somewhere from behind him, and he looks back just in time to see Crowley’s body jolt forward, his mouth flying open in breathless gurgle. Aziraphale’s stunned brain has time to register the look of pained surprise on the man’s suddenly too, too pale face, the blood-coated tip of a silver arrowhead sticking out of his chest. And then Crowley’s legs fold underneath him, and it’s all Aziraphale can do to catch the man before he hits the ground.

Crowley sags against him, hands scrabbling frantically at Aziraphale’s arms as they seek purchase. “R-run,” he rasps at him. “Run!”

But another hiss splits the air before Aziraphale has a chance to formulate some semblance of an answer, and an instant later a sharp pain pierces his right shoulder. In the next breath Aziraphale’s world winks out into blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are chocolates for the muse (and she's a huge fan of chocolates!)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wherein we learn a bit more about the mysterious Count and find out that all is not as it seems.

Chapter 3

Aziraphale wakes to a pounding headache and a painfully uncomfortable crick in his neck, which, once his senses come fully online and he realizes that he had spent an unknown amount of time with his head hanging down on his chest while tied to what feels like a chair of some kind, makes perfect sense. There's a moment of near-suffocating panic as he remembers what preceded his own loss of consciousness, and he snaps his eyes open and raises his head, wincing from the pain the movement causes. But he needs to see, needs to know. 

He spots Crowley almost instantly – kneeling on the floor between two seedy-looking individuals in matching sewer-stained mackintosh raincoats and with black fingerless gloves that they keep possessively on either side of his shoulders. He's alive, and Aziraphale should feel relieved from that fact alone, but relief is the furthest thing from his mind, because Crowley looks... he looks... _dead_ for lack of better word. His face, what little Aziraphale can see of it, downturned as it is, is waxy pale, and Aziraphale doesn't like the way he breathes – small, shuddered inhales, like he can't quite make his lungs work right, can't quite pull in enough air. And he doesn't like the look of that awful silver arrow still protruding grotesquely from the narrow chest or the steadily growing patch of wetness that stains the black material of Crowley’s shirt south of the wound. Or the way Crowley sways feebly in his captors' grasp, as if that grasp is the only thing keeping him upright. 

A thought tickles at the back of his mind, pushing through the panic – because silver is significant and why in the world are they using it on Crowley? But he doesn't have time to fully reflect on that thought as a dark shadow momentarily blocks his view of his friend and he squints up the length of an expensive custom-tailored suit at an unfamiliar face leering at him from above a perfectly starched collar of an impeccably white shirt. 

"You are very strong, Slayer Fell," the Suit drawls out in a posh London accent with a hint of something Eastern European. He’s looking very pleased for some reason, as if Aziraphale was somehow doing him a huge favor. "An average slayer would have still been out after the dose I gave them. But you..." The Suit's face splits into a wide smile that makes him resemble a cat that had just swallowed a canary. "You really _are_ the Chosen One, aren't you."

Aziraphale rolls his eyes, which is a bad idea, he realizes, because it only serves to increase the headache that's currently threatening to pulverize his skull. "So I've been told," he grits out, closing his eyes for a moment against the merciless throb of it. "Frankly, I'm starting to get rather tired of hearing it."

"Well," the Suit scoffs, taking a step back to once again afford Aziraphale unobstructed view of his friend, "if things go as planned today, I can safely say that this will be the last time you'll hear it."

The Suit turns away from him, saunters unhurriedly over to Crowley. Reaches out a pale, perfectly manicured hand to slap the ginger-haired man roughly on the cheeks. "How're you doing there, huh, Crawly?" 

Crowley doesn't show any sign that he’s heard him, though, and the Suit huffs in annoyance, shifts his hand down, grasps the protruding arrow tip and yanks. The arrow comes out with a sickening slurp and Crowley’s head snaps up, eyes blown wide with pain, mouth twisted in a silent scream that is echoed by Aziraphale’s own. 

"Much better," the Suit notes, tossing the arrow on the ground. "You know it was very rude of you to ignore me before."

"You sadistic swine!" Aziraphale growls, heart pounding at the sight of more blood pouring forth from the gaping wound. "What on Earth did you do _that_ for?"

The Suit turns, lifting a curious eyebrow in his direction. "I'm surprised, Slayer," he says. "I would have thought you'd want this thing out of your companion’s body as soon as possible. Unless..." He trails off, his gaze narrowing as if in thought. And then his expression morphs into one of amusement and he flicks his gaze over to Crowley who's looking past him at Aziraphale with something akin to horror. "You don't actually know what he is," he surmises, laughter punctuating his words. "Do you?" 

"What are you talking about?" Aziraphale snaps at him before addressing Crowley with the same question. "What is he talking about?"

But Crowley stares wordlessly back at him, a silent plea in his eyes, and it's the Suit who answers instead. 

"Haven't you ever wondered about Crawly’s here _abilities_ – his strength, his speed, his fighting skill? Or how about his _unnatural_ ability to bounce back from what should have been serious injuries? No? How very oblivious of you, Slayer." The Suit tosses his head back, indulging in a small, hearty laugh. "Look at him now, Chosen One," he taunts, stabbing a finger in Crowley’s direction. "Look carefully. Doesn't he seem better to you now that I've removed the silver?" 

Aziraphale swallows tightly against a suddenly too dry throat, because all those thoughts, all those suspicions he'd had when he first met Crowley are starting to surface again and he can't have that. He can't. Because that would mean that Crowley... 

No, _NO!_ He cannot think like that. He won't! 

"Crowley?" he all but begs, but his friend is looking away from him now, his eyes fixed on some random spot on the floor and Aziraphale feels his heart drop. Because that horrid stranger is right. Because, while Crowley’s wound is still very much present and very jagged it's no longer spilling blood, and he no longer looks as alarmingly pale as he did only moments ago. And that can only mean...

"Oh, God...," he whispers, shaking his head in horrified denial. "Oh, God, no..."

Crowley looks up at him then, the pale face twisted with anguish, and Aziraphale’s mind is churning, throwing brutal truths his way and making him see clearly once and for all. 

_Silver.... Silver is poison to vampires. That's why all his weapons – his knife, his stake, his bullets, are silver. And Crowley…. Crowley never once handled his weapons without wearing gloves, now that_ Aziraphale _thinks about it. And this stranger, this_ Suit, _shot Crowley with a silver arrow because he knew... he_ knew _! But if he knew, why didn't Aziraphale?_

"H-how?" he stammers, the hurt of betrayal in his voice warring with a desperate need to know, to understand. Because how could a vampire, a blood _vampire_ , pull one on _him_ , THE Slayer? "I ch-checked you out. I made sure.... How?"

The Suit cackles loudly, drawing Aziraphale’s attention. "Having a hard time understanding how the great Chosen One could miss the fact that he has a blood-sucking monster for a friend?" he jeers, dark eyes lit up with so much amusement, one would think he were watching a late-night comedy hour. 

"And you, _Crawly_ ," he turns to Crowley, who's glaring murderously back at him, "I'm surprised at you. All your talk of goodness and protecting humans and you conceal this _minor_ detail from your slayer friend? Were you, perchance, afraid he'd chop your head off despite all your pathetic attempts to get into his good graces?" 

He chuckles louder still, eliciting a deep, visceral growl from Crowley, which the Suit blithely ignores, shifting his focus back to Aziraphale. 

"Don't feel bad, Slayer," he mocks, taking slow, measured steps in Aziraphale’s direction. "Vampires as old and powerful as Crawly here are not easy to identify, even for the Chosen One. Their abilities make them undetectable to slayers. Dangerously so, I might add. Like this!" 

And then he's leaning sharply into Aziraphale’s space and Aziraphale jerks back as far as his restraints allow, because the Suit's face transforms suddenly, growing unnaturally pale, the dark of his irises spilling over to turn the sclera into a bottomless pit of black. The suddenly bloodless, cracked lips open with an animalistic hiss, revealing a deadly pair of sharp, long canines. 

And Aziraphale is afraid to look Crowley’s way now, because all he can think about is Crowley’s face twisted into that monstrous mask and all he wants to do is vomit. 

His head is swimming, heart pounding like that of a bayed animal, but he finds it in himself to curl his lips into an answering snarl, to lean threateningly into the creature’s space. 

"Get away from me you foul beast."

The Suit smiles tightly and pulls back from him, seemingly satisfied, his features once again returning to normal, and he straightens out with a smirk, reaching for something behind his back. 

“You have spunk, I’ll give you that. Your brother warned me about that. It’ll truly be a shame to kill you.”

Aziraphale’s teeth scrape audibly against each other. “How do you–”

“Oh, where are my manners, I completely forgot to introduce myself.” The Suit affects the expression of chagrined apology. Presses his hand against his chest in a mockery of a bow. “Count Lucius Morgenstern at your service. Well… at your brother’s service, rather, I suppose.” He chuckles at his own joke.

There’s a sharp, gnawing pain in Aziraphale’s chest. He wonders briefly if it is possible for one’s heart to physically crack under the weight of too much betrayal.

“My brother wants me dead?” he asks, his lips strangely numb. He can feel Crowley’s gaze on him, wide and concerned, but he ignores it. One betrayal at a time – he can’t deal with it all at once, he simply can’t. “Why?”

The Suit, Lucius, shrugs, nonchalant. “It’s not so much that he wants you dead. He just needs you out of the way so he can take over as the Slayer. And me, well….” He smiles, toothy and sharp. “I have some important business to attend to in the coming days, and I could really benefit from having a weaker slayer, not to mention one that owes me a favor. It’s a win-win.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. Too much, this is all too much. Gabriel, his brother, his own _brother_ …. And Crowley….

“You were supposed to come alone, of course.” Lucius continues to gloat from somewhere above him, and Aziraphale forces himself to focus. “I was very cross to see that you had company with you. But when I realized who that company was….” The gleam of predatory excitement in the vampire’s eyes is unmistakable. “Serendipity, wouldn’t you agree, boys?”

The white-haired guard grins back at him, baring his yellowed fangs. His dark-skinned companion nods with a low chuckle.

“You see, Crawly here….” Lucius steps over to Crowley again, and Aziraphale’s eyes widen in alarm as he watches the man pull a gun from behind his waistband. “...he’s been on my ‘to do’ list for a few hundred years already. And to have him brought here like this on a silver platter….” He laughs again, sounding giddy almost. Throws a glance back at Aziraphale. “Do forgive me, Slayer Fell. I feel quite like a child at Christmas-time.”

And then, without warning, he turns back to Crowley, aims the gun and fires, once and then again and again and again, and Aziraphale cries out, as Crowley’s body jerks violently with each new bullet that punches a hole in his chest, his two guards redoubling their grip on his shoulders in an attempt to steady him as he sways.

"Silver bullets," Lucius explains calmly, standing over Crowley’s kneeling form. "Four silver bullets plus whatever damage was already done by the arrow..." He trails off, glancing at his very expensive-looking watch, then smirks with an air of undisputed victor. "I'd give him about 30 minutes, an hour tops before the poison destroys him completely." 

He reaches out with his free hand, pats Crowley’s once again ashen cheek in a perverse mockery of comfort. Crowley hisses at him, weakly jerking his head away. 

"Of course, the vampire within him will fight with everything he's got to stay alive. And there’s such a perfect cure only a couple steps away." Lucius smiles a thin, predatory smile, looks Aziraphale’s way again and sniffs long and deep – drinking in his slayer scent, Aziraphale realizes with a start. 

"Exquisite," the vampire purrs, closing his eyes with pleasure. "I have only had the opportunity to taste the blood of a Chosen One once in my lifetime, Crawly," he winks conspiratorially at Crowley, whose breathing is becoming shallower and shallower with each passing second, head drooping limply, "but I have tell you, the rush you get from it, the power – there’s nothing else like it. I'm almost jealous of you, Crawly. If I weren't more interested in seeing you suffer, I'd have a bite myself." 

He steals another glance at Aziraphale, chuckling at what Aziraphale knows is an expression of horror-tainted fury that's written across his face. 

"Knowing you as well as I do, however," he continues, once again patting Crowley’s cheek – a pat that's hard enough to leave a red imprint on the otherwise waxen skin, "this for you will be punishment enough."

Crowley drags his gaze upwards with a visible effort, glares at the Armani-clad vampire. "Nev-ver gonna... happen," he gasps out.

Lucius shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. "I guess we'll just have to give your vampire a bit more incentive then," he decides and fires two more shots center mass.

Crowley’s body jolts and sags forward, hanging limply between his two captors. The vampire waves his hand at them, motioning for them to let go, and they do so eagerly, taking a step back as Crowley crashes heavily onto the cement floor and lies there unmoving. Lucius scoffs disdainfully at his slumped form, then strides over to Aziraphale. 

"I would love to stay and watch this all unfold," he says when Aziraphale unglues his panicked, wide-eyed gaze from Crowley’s bullet-riddled body, "but, unfortunately, as I said earlier, I have other business to attend to at the moment." He reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a sheathed knife – Aziraphale’s own, with a razor-sharp silver blade. Places it calmly on Aziraphale’s lap. "You can't really fault me for wanting to make things more interesting, can you, Slayer?" he taunts, nodding at the knife before shifting his gaze suggestively over to Crowley. "I can't wait to come back and see how you, boys, have fared."

And he and his two vampire goons walk out, leaving Aziraphale and Crowley locked in a small windowless basement room of the abandoned convent.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which confessions are had
> 
> CW: vampire activity, off-screen murders and torture

Chapter 4

It takes some impressive wiggling on Aziraphale’s part but he is eventually able to twist his wrists enough that he manages to not only grasp the weapon lying across his thighs but also to somehow unsheathe it. Once that is done, cutting his binds is only a matter of seconds. 

And then he hesitates, his gaze sliding over to the prone, unmoving form of his supposed friend. Crowley is lying on his stomach, his face turned away from Aziraphale. There's a pool of blood spreading underneath him and Aziraphale can't tell – doesn't know if he's breathing, doesn't know if the duplicitous scoundrel is even still alive. 

_Alive_. 

He scoffs bitterly at the word, because if it is true what that posh vampire in an Armani suit has said about Crowley then ‘alive’ is the most ill-fitting word there is. A vampire! Aziraphale Fell, a slayer, THE Slayer, has been friends with a goddamn _vampire_ for over six years! _Six bloody years!_ He feels violated, deceived, his trust trampled upon. And how could that bastard do that to him, how _dare_ he! 

He feels his fingers curl tighter around the handle of his dagger as he grits his teeth against a surge of righteous anger. 

But then his oh-so-helpful mind flashes to all the times that Crowley had been there for him, protecting him in the thick of battle, cheering him up after particularly unpleasant conversations with his siblings, all the times he had come through for him, all the times he had his back. Reminds him of the soft affectionate smile, of the longing glow in the beautiful amber eyes, of the gentle touch of thin, delicate fingers skittering tentatively across his skin….

Aziraphale closes his eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath. For the past six years Crowley had been the closest person in his life, closer than anyone has ever been before, including his own family. The least he owes him is to hear him out.

Decided now, he walks over to his motionless friend, crouches beside him and, after a moment of hesitation, gently turns him over onto his back. Crowley’s face, ordinarily pale, is now completely devoid of all color, his eyes are closed. But he’s breathing – pitifully short, pained gasps sucked in convulsively between the partially opened, bloodless lips.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale calls out. 

Crowley’s pale lids slide up at the call of his name, and Aziraphale jerks his hand back despite himself for the eyes that greet him are two glowing pools of spilled over molten lava, the white of the sclera completely gone. Inhuman eyes, vampire eyes. He'd seen similar ones (bottomless obsidian black, poisonous malachite green, saturated ice-cold blue) too many times, had taken great pleasure in watching the light go out in them as he cut off their owners' heads. Having those eyes look back at him from Crowley’s face – it's too much, it’s just too much. And he feels the silver dagger burn against the palm of his hand, eager to be used.

Crowley must read something on his face – the guy knows him too well, and a look of pure anguish flashes in the golden pools. In the next instant his eyes slide closed and he gulps in a shuddered breath, his face tightening with obvious pain. When he opens them again, it's the human eyes that are looking back at Aziraphale, and Aziraphale feels a stab of guilt as he watches the effort it takes his horribly wounded friend to wrestle his vampire side back under control. He knows enough about vampires to know how difficult it is when their instinct to live, their need for blood overrides all other senses. He can only imagine how much it's costing Crowley now. 

That doesn't diminish the fact that Crowley had lied to him, though, and Aziraphale will be damned if he doesn’t get some answers now.

"Why?" he bites out, a bit sharper than he had intended, judging by the way Crowley flinches at the word. "Why go on pretending for all this time? Huh? So you could, what, catch me off-guard or something? Get me to trust you so you could get closer? Cut my head off and go off boasting to your vampire buddies?" 

He knows even as the words leave his mouth just how ridiculous that notion is. Because Crowley’s already _been_ close, closer than anyone, and if he had wanted to kill Aziraphale, he would have had plenty of chances. The slightly rueful twist of Crowley’s lips tells him that his friend is thinking the exact same thing. Crowley doesn't call him out on the unfairness of the accusation, however. Doesn't begrudge Aziraphale his indignation.

"Penance," he responds instead, his voice whisper thin, broken by the harsh, convulsive gasps, the shudders of pain that rack his body. 

"Penance," Aziraphale echoes, frowning.

Crowley swallows with visible difficulty, licks his lips. "I've... done things after I was turned... The bloodlust... it was too... too strong. I... I had no control," he admits, cringing at whatever remembered horrors that assault his mind. 

Aziraphale grits his teeth. Tries… tries with all his might to _not_ allow his mind to go there, to _not_ picture what it was that Crowley might have done.

He fails spectacularly.

"Who turned you?" he asks. It comes out angry and sharp.

“Lucius.”

“When?”

“August 6th, 1632.”

“How?”

Crowley nods somberly at the harsh battery of questions. “I don’t blame you for hatin’ me, y’know,” he murmurs, giving Aziraphale a look so open and so earnest that the Slayer feels his heart stutter pitifully in response. “I’ve been hatin’ me for almost 400 years.”

“Crowley, I–”

“I didn’… didn’t mean to become… _this_ ,” Crowley cuts in, his whisper-thin voice calling Aziraphale to silence. “Just hung around the wrong people.” His lips twist into a wan, bitter smile. “I wanted to be a scientist, like Copernicus, study the stars…. But we were poor, couldn’t… couldn’t afford to…. And Lucius, he was charming, rich,… powerful. And I….” He huffs mirthlessly. “…I was a young fool.”

Aziraphale can guess what happened next. Crowley isn’t exactly the first vampire he’s ever spoken to, he knows how these stories go: a desperate, misguided human, blinded by the desire for money or power or eternal life. Still, it doesn’t explain why Crowley was working for the other side.

“Why didn’t you stay with him? With Lucius, I mean. Why did he want to destroy you?” _“What have you done that has made him so angry?”_ is left unsaid.

Crowley looks away, his gaze becoming distant, clouded with memories. “There was a boy… Warlock, son of a local town council member. Lucius wanted him for a sacrifice of some kind. Sent a group of us after him. We were meant to… meant to kill whoever was in the… house and bring the… the boy to him….” He swallows, slowly, laboriously. Sucks in a breath, cringing in pain. “He was… juss’ a little kid, you know,” he exhales, barely audible. “Fi…five y’rs-old. I… I couldn’t….”

Aziraphale realizes that sometime during Crowley’s halting tale he had stopped breathing as well. He remedies that with a quick convulsive inhale. Asks in a voice that feels as dry as the desert sand, “What did you do?”

Crowley flicks him a timid, lightning-fast glance before looking away again to focus his gaze somewhere on the rumpled blood-stained creases of Aziraphale’s pants. “I killed the others,” he says, voice hollow. “A-all of ‘em. While they were busy… killing the p-parents and the… staff. Burned down the house. Ran off with the kid.”

“Dear Lord….” Aziraphale presses his hand against his chest as his imagination paints for him a vivid tableau to underscore the message of Crowley’s words. “Oh that poor child. What… uh… what happened to him?”

Crowley lets his eyes slide closed. Continues hoarsely between the pathetically short, gasping breaths. “There was… a woman… next village over. Most folks avoided her… thought… she was a witch. I knew… knew her as a kid. Hoped she might… help.”

“You brought the child to her.” 

It wasn’t a question, but Crowley nods anyway, tongue darting out briefly to lick at the cracked bloodless lips.

“Myself, too. I wasn’t… I got… bit roughed up. Needed blood. Agnes, she had goats… lotsa goats.”

“Goats,” Aziraphale echoes, incredulous.

“Y-yeah.”

He gives a humorless chuckle that cuts off almost instantly, his breath hitching. In the next instant, his body tenses, his face rippling with pain, as a series of harsh, rattling coughs rack his lanky frame. It seems to go on forever, the agony of it, Crowley’s body shaking with it. And Aziraphale longs desperately to reach out, to offer comfort to his friend, but Crowley’s slightly parted lips give him a glimpse of the unnaturally elongated canines an instant before they are forcibly pulled back in, and Aziraphale hesitates. 

It is a while before Crowley, exhausted and trembling with pain, manages to speak again. 

“The ritual Lucius needed the boy’s blood for… it was gonna make ‘im powerful. More… more powerful than anyone…. But it had to… happen on a certain night. Miss the window… and isss’over.” He swallows, licks his lips again. “A-all I needed to do… was keep him off the kid’s trail long enough. I knew he’d be… looking for me. Knew he was… pissed. So I… I left the boy with Agnes and I ran…. Left a trail for Lucius t’follow… t’find me.”

“Did he?” Aziraphale is almost afraid to ask. But Crowley’s been around for centuries since then, so that must mean he didn’t. Doesn’t it?….

Crowley drags his eyes open – fully golden once more, his body no longer having the energy to suppress the beast within. Smiles up at him ruefully, giving Aziraphale once more a glimpse of his fangs. Reaches a trembling hand to tug at the bloodied, bullet-torn shirt until it rips fully. Taps weakly at a round puckered scar in the center of his chest, virtually obscured by the sluggishly bleeding, ragged wounds.

“C-caught up to me years later… up in New England…. Tortured me… for days. Tried to… to get me to tell ‘im where… where the boy was. …I s-said I didn’t know. …A-after a wh-while I couldn’t… couldn’t talk anymore. S-so he s-staked me to the m-monastery wall… L-left me f-for humans to find.” 

Aziraphale shakes his head in horror. Stakes paralyze vampires, he knows that. Crowley would have been unable to move. And if humans walked in on a vampire, even a badly injured one, they wouldn’t have hesitated to…. “How did you?...”

Crowley smiles again, inexplicably. “I got… lucky. Big earthquake next day. Monastery was destroyed in a landslide. Stake got dislodged. I… managed to pull it out… the rest of the way.” He takes another gasp of a breath, his features darkening once more. “I returned to England after…. Wanted to check on Agnes and the boy. Found out she was dead…. Burned as a witch by the humans from her village. I lost… lost track of the boy, too. Agnes must have sent him away, but I couldn’t find him. Didn’t know where to look….” There’s anger in the thin, raspy voice; centuries’ worth of impotent rage. The pain-filled molten-gold eyes that are staring up at Aziraphale are burning with it. “She was a good person. She… she helped me. _Me_ , angel. She knew what I was and she still….” He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head. “I wanted to kill the lot of ‘em,” he confesses hollowly. 

Aziraphale nods, even if Crowley can’t see him. He can understand the sentiment. He doesn’t approve of it, but he can understand it. What’s more, he finds himself sympathizing with Crowley. Finds that he’s forgiven him long ago. For lying to him all these years, for not revealing to him what he really is. Because, truthfully, if Crowley's confession has proven anything it’s that he is still Crowley, still very much the person, the _friend_ he knew. And… oh, bugger it all….

“I'm sorry.” 

He blurts out the words before he can even think about them, and Crowley’s eyes fly back open at the soft offer of compassion, the look of timid, almost desperate hope in the golden depths stabbing Aziraphale straight through the heart. He drops his gaze then, lets it slide down to the bullet-riddled chest, to the ragged wounds blackened with poison. How much silver can a vampire take on, he wonders, before his body gives out? How much time does Crowley have before there's no hope of healing? Has Aziraphale already wasted too much? 

Beside him Crowley coughs harshly, interrupting Aziraphale’s train of thought. The cough is followed by a poorly suppressed whimper of pain. 

Aziraphale can't take it anymore. He grasps the hand that lies limply next to his leg, squeezes the ice-cold skin, risking a glance back up at Crowley’s face.

"H-hey..." 

He is about to say something else, but Crowley interrupts him, the bloodless lips moving weakly to force out the barely audible, "Finish me."

For a long, breathless moment all Aziraphale can do is stare dumbly at his friend, not daring to believe his own ears. Because as much as he was feeling conflicted about the sudden revelation of Crowley’s blood-sucking nature, the thought of killing the man never even entered his mind. 

"W-what?" he stammers.

Crowley gives him a resigned smile, nods weakly at the dagger Aziraphale is still clutching subconsciously in his left hand. "I'm d-dying, angel," he whispers, unapologetically blunt. "One more... s-stab should do it." When Aziraphale hesitates, still staring at Crowley with wide, incredulous eyes, he pushes on, urgent, panicked almost. “I’m done, angel…. But you… you got work to do. The boy… Warlock… I tracked down his descendant. S’why I was gone so long. Was trying… trying to make sure…. S’another boy. Adam. Adam Young. Same… same bloodline. Could smell it on ‘im. And if… if I could… so can Lucius. S’probably why he’s here… now. The ritual… there’s another blood moon tomorrow. You gotta… gotta stop ‘im.”

“We will,” Aziraphale nods, feeling a sudden, desperate surge of determination. “Together.”

“Angel….”

But Aziraphale has already made up his mind, and Crowley’s plea has only served to strengthen his resolve. He swallows thickly, licking his lips that have gone dry as the desert sand on a hot summer day. "What's special about slayer blood?" he asks, the thudding of his heart loud and rushed in his ears.

Crowley stares at him with those unnatural golden eyes of his, a frown of confusion creasing his brow. Aziraphale stares back, unflinching, waiting for an answer until Crowley relents with a reluctant sigh. 

"It's got... healing properties," he huffs out, eyes sliding hungrily to Aziraphale’s neck before he jerks them forcefully away, cringing with remorse and self-hatred.

"Healing," Aziraphale intones, nodding briefly. "Like curing a poisoned vampire."

"Zira..."

"So the blood of the Chosen One should do wonders for you then, right, dear boy?"

Crowley watches him silently, his rapid gasps – the only sound breaking the tense quiet. "No," he says finally, turning his head to the side to avoid Aziraphale’s incredulous glare.

"No?" Aziraphale echoes, flabbergasted. "I'm offering you the gift of my apparently highly valuable blood, Crowley. Something that Lucius fellow was openly drooling over. And you're saying no?"

Crowley slides his gaze back to him, mouth twisting ruefully. "Why would you h-help a... m-monster?"

And Aziraphale flinches, because that word – he's used it more times than he can count. "Don't be a such a pillock, Crowley," he deflects angrily. "Now's not the time. You need blood, I'm offering. End of story. We can continue this conversation _after_ you’ve helped me stop whatever this ritual is. You know I’m going to need your help for it." He lets the dagger drop, reaches up to unbutton the top buttons of his shirt, all too aware of the desperate, hungry gaze that tracks his movements. 

"S-stop, angel..." The hoarse plea is nothing more than a gasp, but Aziraphale hears it just fine, shakes his head vigorously to indicate his vehement refusal of the idea. "Please, Zira. I can't... please..." 

"Why?" But there's no answer, as Crowley’s eyes slide closed, the frantic gasps slowing down, becoming non-existent almost. "Crowley?" Aziraphale’s voice rises in panic, hands reaching down to grab at Crowley’s shoulders, shaking him hard. "Answer me, damn you!"

The pale eyelids flutter weakly, slits of molten gold peeking out, focusing sluggishly on Aziraphale’s face. "I'm too f-far gone," he murmurs, apologetic. "T-too much damage. I... I may not be able to stop." 

His voice is weak, so weak it makes Aziraphale’s heart twist with anguish. He bites down on his lower lip, his resolve hardened. Because it's Crowley, it's _Crowley_ , dammit, and he is not about to let him die. "You will," he says with furious conviction, reaching up to grasp the cold, pale cheeks. "You'll stop. I trust you."

"Angel..."

But Aziraphale leans in closer, pulls Crowley up so the man’s face is flush against the exposed skin of Aziraphale’s neck. "With my life," he insists, cupping the back of his head. 

There's a wet gasp against his neck, a soft, broken "Forgive me, Zira," and Aziraphale closes his eyes and tries his best to calm the wild thumping of his heart as he feels the razor-sharp fangs sink hungrily into his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I forgot to include Warlock and Agnes in the tags. An unforgivable oversight on my part. I do hope you enjoyed the introduction of them nevertheless.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Crowley gets to be a bit of a badass and some worrying developments take place in Tadfield.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: vampire-on-vampire violence, blood, mentions of past murders

Chapter 5

Heaven. He's in heaven. That's what it feels like, at least, after the excruciating agony of silver burning its deadly path through his body, scorching him from the inside out. This? He never knew something could taste so amazingly, so mind-numbingly good. The moment his fangs sunk into the soft, vulnerable skin above Aziraphale’s jugular, the moment that intoxicating life-saving liquid hit his tongue, exploding all over his senses, he was gone. Hopelessly lost in the heady euphoria of Aziraphale’s taste. 

He can feel his body healing, rejuvenating with every greedy gulp, can feel the poisonous bullets within him disintegrate under the overwhelming onslaught of the restoring nectar of Aziraphale’s blood, can feel the incredible, unrestrainable rush of power that threatens to make him burst at the seams. _Sweet Lord in Heaven_ , he has never in his seemingly endless and miserable existence experienced anything even remotely like this. This is... _This_ … _Is_...

His mind and his senses overloaded, he moans in breathless ecstasy, sinking his teeth deeper into the pliant flesh, greedily gulping in the intoxicating liquid.

The warm body clutched within his bruising grasp shudders weakly in response to his latest assault. Goes suddenly, terrifyingly limp against him. 

And just like that his euphoria-numbed brain comes back online. With a vengeance. 

_Aziraphale!_

He pulls in his fangs, releases his grip so abruptly that the still form entrapped within it falls heavily onto the ground, and he's already scrambling away from his friend’s body, moving so fast it makes his head spin. 

"Shit, shit, shit!" 

He runs a shaking hand over his mouth, fighting against an overwhelming surge of nausea, his horrified gaze riveted to the slumped, motionless figure of his friend. Pale, _so pale_ against the drying stain of blood that covers the side of his neck. Eyes closed, mouth slack and... _no... no, please, no…._

The memory hits him unawares, and it's no longer Aziraphale’s face he's looking at but the faces of the ghosts that haunt his dreams – his parents, his siblings, his friends.... All dead, drained ruthlessly of blood by a famished, out of control animal – by _him_ – their sightless eyes staring accusingly at him across the fog of centuries. He gulps and gags at the unrelenting viciousness of the images that swirl through his mind in vivid color, one after another, reminding him over and over of the monster he's been, the monster he still is. 

He slams his eyes shut and moans, low and pathetic, as the pain of those memories rips through him like a blade of fire, folding him over at the waist, making him lose his balance.

He sways on his knees, keening, hands gripping the sides of his head hard enough to do some real damage if he were an average human, as he feels himself begin to sink deeper and deeper into the quicksand vortex of despair. 

_Aziraphale tried to help you, and you murdered him. Just like you did all those others._

_Murderer._

_Unforgivable._

_Monster._

But then something skitters at the edges of his enhanced vampire senses – the whiff of familiar blood, coursing slowly through human veins, a faint thump-thump-thump of a human heart. His eyes fly open in wretched, disbelieving hope. Settle once again on Aziraphale’s lax form. His bleary, anguished gaze registers a faint movement, a slow rise and fall of the shirt-clad chest, and he nearly chokes on a wave of relief that rushes through him. 

_Alive_! Aziraphale’s alive. 

He rushes back to Aziraphale’s side, places a trembling hand on his friend’s chest, the contact calming, reassuring, as is the weak beat he feels against his palm. "I'll get you help, angel," he swears hotly to the unconscious man. "You're gonna be alright. You hear me? You're gonna be alright." 

He stands up and closes his eyes, sniffing the air. Lucius is long gone, he is sure of that. Can no longer detect the old vamp's distinctive smell of decay masked from a slayer's enhanced but still regrettably human senses by glamour perfected over the centuries. But he does smell two vampire signatures just outside the door of their basement prison. One of them, he’s fairly certain, is Ligur, one of Lucius’s top-ranking assistants. Ligur and his buddy Hastur spent days refining their torture skills on him back in that monastery near the Canadian border, and their distinctive stench of sewage and rot followed him for years after. It’s what he smelled earlier when the two vampires were holding him down as Lucius shot him repeatedly with his gun. It’s what he’s smelling now, too. Just outside the door. And Crowley hands curl into fists in anticipation of a fight.

The other signature is unfamiliar, young, and he dismisses it almost immediately. A younger vampire means an inexperienced, easy prey. He won’t be a problem.

Crowley’s eyes open, flashing with a dangerous, predatory hunger a millisecond before the molten gold of their irises spills over the whites as the vampire within him bursts to the surface. 

"Be right back, angel," he hisses over his shoulder to Aziraphale’s unresponsive form and then his gaze lands on the silver dagger that lies beside his friend and he grins malevolently, bends down to pick it up, taking care to only touch the handle. In the next instant he's already at the door, a well-placed kick with his vampire-enhanced power, and the obstruction flies off its hinges, startling the two guards outside. 

He makes quick work of the younger vampire, the creature's head flying clean off its shoulders following a vicious, lightning fast swipe of the blade. And then grunts, as Ligur jumps onto his back with an angry growl, strong arms wrapping around his throat, squeezing to kill. 

Crowley swipes Aziraphale’s dagger across one of the restraining forearms, and the other vampire jerks his arm away with a howl of pain. Crowley doesn’t hesitate to press his advantage. Reaches behind him to grab a fistful of the dirty mackintosh, twists around and shoves his attacker backwards into the wall. The hand holding the blade darts forward, quick as a black mamba, and the other vampire gasps in pain as the dagger plunges into his chest, pinning him in place.

Crowley leans forward, his face inches away from Ligur who bares his fangs at him, dark eyes burning with undisguised hatred. 

"Where's Lucius?" Crowley hisses, baring his fangs threateningly in the other vampire's face. 

“Sh-shoulda… ripped your… head off when I had the chance… Crawly…," Ligur snarls with hate-filled defiance. 

Crowley laughs in response. It's not a kind laugh. It's a laugh that brings with it a promise pain – lots _of_ it, and horror and death. He steps in closer, putting all of his weight onto the dagger. Twists it, hard. The vampire mewls plaintively, eyes widening in fear that has punched through the bravado.

“Maybe you should have,” Crowley agrees with a dark smile. "But you missed your chance, and now it’s my turn." His voice drops, low and dangerous. "I'm gonna find out what I need with or without your help. Might take me longer, but I _will_ find out. So the way I see it, you got two options. One: you tell me what I wanna know, make things easier for me, and I kill you now. One quick cut. From here to here." He runs his finger across the vampire's neck, projecting the motion of the blade. "One minute you're here, the next – poof, you're gone. Won't even know what hit ya. A quick merciful death. Something I think we both know you don’t deserve. Certainly not from me. Or..." Crowley places his free hand on Ligur’s shoulder, keeping him pinned to the wall. Yanks the knife out of the vampire’s chest and presses the tip of the silver blade against his neck. The skin there sizzles on contact with the deadly poison, making its owner twitch in pain. "Or you _don't_ tell me, and I still cut you, but I stop the blade right..." He drags the blade across the vampire's neck, jabs the point none too gently into the center of it. "...here! And then I stab you through the heart once more so you can't go anywhere. You'll still end up dead," he smirks into the now openly terrified face before him, drawing closer and closer with each hissed out word, "but it'll take slower, much, _much_ slower, and you will feel every... excruciating... moment of it."

He increases the pressure of the blade's tip until the first droplets of blood, already tainted with silver, roll down the dark skin. The vampire whimpers, closing his eyes and Crowley snarls, moving in for the kill shot. "Do you know what it’s like to feel the poison burning through your veins, Ligur? Scorching them, scorching _you_ from the inside, until all you can feel is that fire, devouring you inch by inch, minute by minute? And you will beg, you will _beg_ for this to be over, and–"

"S-some chapel in Dartford," the vamp blurts out, shivering. 

Crowley narrows his gaze. "What chapel?" he demands, digging his fingers free hand harder into Ligur’s shoulder when the vampire hesitates with a response. “What… chapel?”

“O-old… abandoned. Don’t… don’t know the name.”

Crowley grits his teeth. Growls, putting more weight on the blade. “Is that where the ritual is going to take place?”

Ligur gasps, hisses threateningly even as his unnaturally bright marsh green eyes bulge out in panic. “Ye-yesssss.”

"Does he have the boy yet?"

The other vampire shakes his head as much as the blade allows him. “Don’t know,” he spits out. “Supposed to… join up after I make sure you’re _dead_.”

“Right.” Crowley nods sharply, pulls back a half a step. “Well, thanks for your help.” And he swipes the blade cleanly through the other vampire's neck. 

He doesn't bother to watch Ligur’s headless body twitch out the final throes of its cursed life. He's already wasted enough time. He runs back inside instead, crouches down beside his unconscious friend. 

Falters as his gaze flitters to the two distinct puncture wounds on the side of Aziraphale’s neck, the sight of it making his insides twist with vicious, breath-robbing guilt. He sucks in a shuddered breath, forces himself to focus against the squall of anguished emotions that ravage his tortured soul. Because there isn't time for this now, Aziraphale needs help and every second counts. So he slides his hands under Aziraphale’s body, picks him up off the floor with breathless care, pulls him close to his chest. 

"I got you, angel," he whispers, bowing his head protectively over the pale face. "I got you, let's go." And he takes off, cradling his precious cargo as close as he dares.

***

“I just don’t know where he might be. It’s so late, and he hasn’t even… hasn’t even had his dinner. He never misses dinner!” Deirdre Young sinks into the nearby chair and sniffles loudly, burying her face in her hands. Beside her, her husband Arthur, uncharacteristically ruffled and pale, places a comforting arm on his wife’s shoulder. 

“We didn’t know where else to go,” he offers by way of excuse. “We just…. We heard that vampire activity had kicked up, and, well… Mr. Fell always said to come to him if there was ever a problem, so….”

“You were absolutely right to come here, dearies,” Marjorie Potts, the landlady and unofficial manager of the Vampire-Hunter Army headquarters that operated out of the back room of her one-storey Jasmine Cottage, assures, holding out a box of tissues. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find the boy in no time.”

Deirdre sniffs gratefully, reaching out to accept the proffered tissue. Dabs it against her red, tear-puffed face. 

“What about Adam’s friends?” Anathema asks, the map of Tadfield laid out on the table before her. “Did they say anything about where they saw him last?”

“Pepper said they’ve been playing out in Hogback Wood like they usually do. But she said they all left to go home hours ago. Except… except Adam never showed up.” The remainder of Deirdre’s words are swallowed up by another mournful keen, leaving Arthur to pat her lightly on the shoulder with a visibly trembling hand.

“Alright.” Anathema traces a circle around Hogback Wood. 

The sun has set hours ago, and a search of the wooded area would be more than challenging in the darkness. Especially without their Slayer’s enhanced senses. (But Aziraphale isn’t here. Hasn’t made contact with them since earlier in the afternoon to tell them that he’d be back in a few hours tops. Won’t even answer his phone. And Anathema really doesn’t want to think too much about what that might mean. Doesn’t want to focus on that particular worry now that they’ve got a child missing at a time when vampire activity is spiking all around town.) No matter. It wouldn’t be the first time they went on a hunt without the Slayer. And they have become quite adept at looking for things in the dark. They can do this. She knows they can.

She stands up, reaching for her go-to vampire-hunting bag. “Newton, Sergeant Shadwell and I are going to go out there and take a look.” She gives the distraught parents as reassuring a smile as she can manage. “You just stay put here, keep our Miss Marjorie company. I’m sure we’ll be back with your boy in no time.”

***

They return mere hours away from dawn, exhausted and frustratingly, worryingly empty-handed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Crowley gets a bit of a blast from the past

Chapter 6

It’s late morning by the time Crowley pulls his Bentley to a rubber-burning stop in front of the Jasmine Cottage. He jumps out of the car, slamming the door behind him with enough force to make the car rock on its axles as he hurries around the hood of it to get to the passenger side. Under normal circumstances he would have been horrified at such callous treatment of his precious baby. Under normal circumstances he would have stopped and run his fingers apologetically along its shiny, black flank with a promise of pampering and a vow to never do so again. 

But these are not normal circumstances, and there’s a dying Slayer in his car, and he’s already wasted too much time raiding the local blood bank for the right blood bags. So he doesn’t bother with niceties. Slings the duffel bag with life-saving blood over his shoulder, pulls Aziraphale into his arms, and takes off, shoving the passenger door shut behind him with the bottom of his foot.

He doesn’t bother with the doorbell. Or with the doorknob. Kicks the door open with his foot and barges in, nearly bowling over the long-legged Newton fellow who happens to be in his path.

“Help him!” he shouts, ignoring the gasps of surprise and concern that greet his arrival, his full attention on Marjorie Potts who comes out of the back room, drawn out by the noise. She is the one he needs, the one he’s putting all of his (and Aziraphale’s) hopes on. A former field nurse, she’d know how to set up an IV line. She’d know what to do.

Or so he hopes.

“Help him, please!” He strides over to the older woman, the urgency of the moment making his voice slip into an animalistic growl. “He needs a transfusion. Quick. I got the blood, I know you got the tools. Come on!”

Pale blue eyes narrow on Crowley’s face, sharp and assessing. Then flick down to the unconscious man in his arms, her forehead creasing in worry. “Put him on the couch over there,” she offers finally, and walks back into the room she’d come out of, a hurried purpose in her step.

By the time Crowley gets Aziraphale settled with utmost care on the obnoxiously floral monstrosity of a couch, Marjorie’s already striding back toward them, carrying an old-fashioned leather satchel emblazoned with the Red Cross emblem. She pulls up a stool, settles down beside the couch and flips the satchel open, pulling out a pair of latex gloves.

“You said you have the blood, dearie?” she asks, snapping on the gloves and moving to roll up Aziraphale’s sleeve.

Wordlessly, Crowley sets down his duffel. Unzips it. “B negative. Take as much as you need.”

Marjorie nods. Rolls up Aziraphale’s sleeve, palpates the vein in the crook of his elbow, pressing gently down on the too-pale skin.

“That there looks like a vampire bite,” Shadwell’s gruff voice observes from behind Crowley, and Crowley stiffens, clamping his teeth shut against a roar of self-loathing.

“It is,” he grits out, forcing his attention away from Aziraphale’s neck, forcing himself to focus on Marjorie’s hands instead as she expertly plunges the needle into the Slayer’s vein and secures it, moving to attach the first of the blood bags.

“What happened?”

_Anathema._

“And just _how_ d’ya know his blood type?”

_Shadwell._

“Will he turn into a vampire now?”

_Newton._

“He won’t.” He chooses to respond to the last one. Soon enough they’ll all have their answers after all.

“How d’you know?”

He takes a deep breath, mentally prepares himself. Breathes out in a strangled, hate-filled confession, “‘Cause I’m the one who bit ‘im.”

The shocked silence that greets his words doesn’t last long. There’s a rustle of movement behind him, a rattle of wood and the unsheathing of metal, a click of an arrow notching into its slot in a crossbow. And he forces himself to remain still as he feels the three vampire hunters step closer. Forces himself not to flinch when the pointy end of a stake pokes him between his shoulder blades and a silver knife presses against the skin of his neck. 

The silver burns, but he welcomes it. Wonders briefly with a kind of a morbid lassitude if it wouldn’t be better for everyone if he just forced their hand, let them do to him what he so sorely deserves. Put him out of his misery once and for all.

But he can’t, can he. Because Lucius is still out there, and the ritual is nigh. And the Slayer, thanks to him, is currently out of the picture. So he still has work to do. 

But once he’s done. Once he’s done….

“I always knew there was something suspicious about ya,” Shadwell snarls into his ear, the stake pressing harder into his spine. “Comin’ outta nowhere. Always wearin’ those damn glasses. Hangin’ ‘round Mister Fell here. Probably been waitin’ to attack ‘im all this time, you filthy creature. I shoulda done you in long a–”

“Mister Shadwell.” Marjorie’s quietly chiding voice somehow manages to cut the other man’s murderous tirade off. “Surely even you can see how upset the young man is. He’s been around Mister Fell for years now. If he wanted to hurt him, don’t you think he would have acted on that by now?” Her eyes seek out Crowley again, calm and perceptive, searching for something in his face, but all he can do is blink numbly back at her, taken completely unawares by her unexpected support. She smiles tightly at him, turns her attention back to her task. “I’m sure whatever happened wasn’t intentional,” she concludes.

“Well I, for one, would very much like to know what _exactly_ happened,” Anathema determines, stepping around Crowley’s side, the blade of the knife still held against his neck. “Talk.”

Crowley doesn’t look at her. He looks down at Aziraphale instead. At his face, still slack, still so awfully pale. At the needle in the crook of his elbow. At the slowly diminishing volume of blood in the bag. _It’s working, isn’t it? It has to be._

“He was… _we_ were lured into a trap.” His voice feels like gravel. “An old vampire, very powerful. I was… injured. Badly.”

“So you thought you’d drain Aziraphale to keep yourself alive.” Anathema’s lips twist in a disgusted sneer.

“No.” He grits his teeth against the memory of Aziraphale’s body growing heavy and pliant in his arms. “No, I asked him to kill me. He… refused.” 

“You really expect us to believe that Aziraphale _offered_ you to feed on him.”

Crowley lifts his head at that, forces himself to meet her gaze. “It doesn’t matter what you believe,” he responds with a calm, tired resignation. “I didn’t come here to convince you lot. I came to get him help.” He takes a deep, steadying lungful. Straightens his shoulders. “If you wish to kill me, I won’t stop you,” he says as calmly and as earnestly as he can manage. “But that vampire I mentioned, he’s very old and very bad, and about to become a whole hell of a lot more powerful than he already is. And right now I’m the only one who has any chance of stopping him.”

Anathema squints at him from behind her glasses. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s a ritual. Can be done every 300 years, give or take. Requires one full blood moon, the blood of a child from a specific lineage, and some desecrated hallowed ground. Put the three together, and you unlock the power from all the undead souls that have ever walked the earth.”

“I thought vampires don’t have a soul,” Newton pipes up from behind him, his tone belligerent and wary. 

In front of him Anathema raises a skeptical eyebrow, her expression making it clear that she thinks the same. Not that he can blame her, or any of them, really. Monsters, that’s what vampires are, that’s what _he_ is. Hard to accept the possibility of such a creature having a soul.

Still….

“Having a soul doesn’t stop one from becoming a monster,” he points out quietly, submitting himself to the silent judgment of the dark brown eyes. “Murderers have them. We still do, too. Corrupted souls, but souls nonetheless.”

There’s another moment of silence as Anathema digests his words, her gaze and her knife hand never wavering. 

“So all these… _corrupted souls_ get released,” she says finally. “Then what?”

“Simple terms?” Crowley shrugs carefully, trying not to jostle the knife too much. “They use the vampire that released them as a vessel and fill him up to the brim. All those souls, all that power – now his.”

Anathema flicks a glance behind Crowley at the two other hunters, a silent conversation taking place between them. 

“And we should trust _you_ to stop him. After what you’ve done to Aziraphale. So you could, what, take all that power for yourself?”

Crowley’s patience is starting to wear thin.

“Look,” he begins, hands fisted at his sides in growing frustration. “You’re wasting time, alright. Lucius has already chosen the place, the moon will be out in a few hours, and I’m fairly sure he either knows where the boy is or already has him. If I don’t get–”

“The boy?”

A new voice, timid and tear-hoarse, startles him, and he whips his head toward it, hissing as the blade bites deeper into his skin at the movement.

There’s a woman standing in the doorway of the previously closed bedroom: messily tousled blond hair, red-rimmed eyes, tear-blotched skin. She looks familiar somehow, but it isn’t until she speaks again that he recognizes who she is. 

“Y-you said a boy. Our… our son Adam didn’t come home last night, and I….” She cuts off, a trembling hand clamping over her mouth. 

“Ah, ffffuck….” Crowley feels like hitting something. Preferably something solid. Something that would hurt. A lot.

A curly-haired man with a kindly round face appears behind the woman, places both arms around her trembling shoulders, pulling her toward him. “Is that true?” he asks, a look of fearful hope in his dark eyes. “That vampire you were talking about, does he have Adam? Is he alive?” the man presses, when Crowley fails to respond, his mind too occupied by the frantic attempts to figure out how much time he might still have before it all goes to shit.

“I… I don’t know,” Crowley hedges finally, wincing apologetically at the muffled sob that greets his words. “Nobody’s ever actually performed the ritual before. I managed to thwart it the last time by hiding the boy, but….” He sighs. Tries to inject a bit of cautious hope into his words. “Look, I’m fairly sure he needs the boy alive for the ritual. So….” He glances at his watch. “…so we a few hours at least. If you let me go now,” he addresses the hunters once more, “the boy might still have a chance.”

Anathema regards him silently, brow furrowed in thought. Then nods and steps back, pulling the knife away. At her signal, the pressure of the stake against his back disappears, too.

“Why can’t we come with you?”

He grins at her, rubbing his fingers against the slowly healing cut on the side of his neck. He knows the reason behind her question, knows they don’t trust him enough to let him go alone. Unluckily for them, he’s got a good reason why they can’t.

“You know that uptick in vampire activity in recent months? All those new vampires showing up? Well, they didn’t just show up here out of the blue. They’re here for the show. Hundreds and hundreds of vampires, all gathering in one place. Do you really think that a bunch of average-skilled humans can hope to survive even five minutes against that crowd?”

“And what makes ya think _you_ can survive it, beastie?” Shadwell grunts with disdainful cynicism.

Crowley doesn’t even deign him with a glance. “I’m not planning on fighting any of them,” he counters. “I have the right to challenge Lucius. I plan to invoke it.” 

He looks at Aziraphale again, smiling at the changes he sees. Marjorie has just emptied one bag and is hooking up another, and he can already see Aziraphale’s color slowly returning, can hear his pulse and breathing steadying out. Timidly he reaches out, drawn toward the slayer like a moth to a flame. Runs gentle fingers down the side of Aziraphale’s face, searing all of it – the lines of his face, the feel of his skin, the smell of him, this brief tender contact – into memory. Because this is it for him. Even if he survives tonight, which isn't likely, he won't ever be seeing Aziraphale again. Not after what he did. 

"Take care of him, will you," he exhales, feeling Marjorie’s concerned gaze. “He’ll be weak when he wakes. Keep him here. Don’t… don’t let him leave.” _Don’t let him go after me_ , he doesn’t say.

He forces himself to break contact. Forces himself to step away, his heart aching with the anguished anticipation of the inevitable, unbearable loss. 

He turns around to face the hunters, who are all watching him warily, their hands still clutching the weapons. “Stay put,” he tells them, making sure to capture everyone’s eyes. “If I succeed, I’ll call you, bring back the boy.”

“And if you don’t?” Newton’s fingers twitch nervously against the shaft of his crossbow.

“If you don’t hear from me by morning….” He stares down the young hunter. Injects as much urgency into his voice as he can. “…I want you to run. Take Aziraphale, take whoever else you need, and you run and you hide.”

“Are ya threat’nin’ us, boy?”

He snarls at Shadwell, letting a bit of his fangs peek out. “No, _human_ , I’m instructin’ ya. If Lucius gets all that power, no human on this Earth will be safe from him, and you better believe he’ll be coming for the Slayer and his ilk first.”

He watches his words settle. Watches them pale as those words hit their mark. 

“Stay put,” he repeats with a satisfied nod, moving to leave.

“Are you Anthony?”

Anathema’s quiet question stops him in his tracks.

“W-what?” He whips around so fast, it makes the room sway. “How do you….” He takes an unsteady step toward her, his chest feeling awfully, uncomfortably tight. 

“Agnes wrote about you in her journal,” she responds, seemingly unfazed by the sudden change in his demeanor. “She didn’t call you by your current name, and I didn’t put it together until you mentioned rescuing another boy from this ritual. I just….” Her lips press together, cutting off whatever she was about to say. “You _are_ him, aren’t you?” she asks again.

“You’re Agnes’s kin,” he breathes, the realization making his head spin. No wonder he’d always smelled something odd about her, something… familiar. “I didn’t know she had any relations. She was always alone when I….” He raises a shaky hand, runs it slowly down his face. “I’m sorry I put her in danger,” he says, meeting her gaze once more with a pleading one of his own. The confession is long overdue, centuries’ worth of guilt weighing on his soul. It feels just a fraction lighter now. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop them.” 

Anathema dips her head, eyes wide. “Agnes said you were a good man.”

It sounds like a question the way she says it, but the very knowledge that Agnes thought so about him awakens something long-forgotten deep within his tainted soul. Softens the sting of Anathema’s distrust.

He nods, swallows past an uncomfortably swollen throat. “She was a good woman,” he croaks, averting his eyes. “I gotta….” He stabs a thumb over his shoulder. “Go… I have to go.”

“Good luck,…. _Anthony_.”

The quiet but earnest benediction catches him as he’s about to cross the threshold, and his step falters, his fingers brushing the doorway as he stills, shoulders stiff. A sincere gesture of kindness is not something he’s had directed at his person. Not once his true nature was known. Not since… not since Agnes.

He can’t afford to linger, however. Can’t afford to waste any more time. So he shakes himself and forces his legs to move, out, out and away.

He doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you forgive me any medical inaccuracies in this. Please enjoy the chapter (and any leftover turkey) and don't forget to leave me a comment. 😘


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the gauntlet is thrown.

Chapter 7

Crowley stands leaning against the hood of the Bentley, arms crossed on his chest, his gaze fixed on the evening sun as it dips slowly below the horizon, leaching the sky of its colors as it goes. 

_Won't be long now_ , he thinks and shifts his gaze toward the ever-growing crowd of darkened figures that surrounds the former chapel, whose massive fire-gutted carcass grown over with gnarled, dying vines, stands lone and proud underneath the steadily darkening firmament – an ugly, forgotten relic of time past.

But it won’t stay forgotten long. Not after tonight. Not if what Crowley fears shall come to pass. It will become forever known as the genesis of horror, the place where began the end of human race.

So Crowley must stop it. At any cost. 

His right hand strays behind his back to where Aziraphale’s silver dagger is tucked into his waistband, wrapped in a piece of black cloth. He fingers the handle of the weapon, closes his eyes, sparing a fond farewell thought to his friend. "Well, here goes nothing," he murmurs, then takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders and sets off toward the chapel.

The centuries-old stones virtually vibrate under his feet as he makes his way past the first rows of vampires that crowd the inside of the crumbling building. The air here is so thick with anticipatory tension, it seems to wrap around him like the viscous slush of a quagmire, binding his every move. The vampires on the outer edges of the chapel are mostly out-of-towners and small-time underlings. None of them know him, know who he is, know his ties to humans. And so all it takes is for him to show them the face of the monster that hides beneath the surface – an older, more powerful monster – and they part before him like the waters of the Red Sea.

Until he gets to the inner circle. Until he sees the familiar faces of the scumbags that held him down at an English monastery all those centuries ago as Lucifer tore apart his body. Until _they_ see him.

There's an inhale of shocked silence, and on the exhale he's already surrounded, rough hands clamping around his arms and shoulders like steel traps.

"Well, well, well..." The last row surrounding the long-defunct altar pulls apart to let through a tall figure clad in a long black coat that flaps around his ankles as he walks. "I honestly did not expect to see you walk among the undead again, Crawly. Much less _here_." Lucifer stops just a couple of paces shy of Crowley, thin lips pulling into a wide, self-assured smile. "What _are_ you doing here, Crawly? Come to see me leap my way into history?" He stabs his thumb blindly over his shoulder toward the crumbled remains of a stone altar, to where a small, shivering figure can be seen tied crucifix-like to a wooden frame, a thin streak of blood dripping down from each bound wrist – the human catalyst for the ritual that has already been set in motion. 

Crowley bares his teeth in defiance, meets the other vampire’s mocking gaze with a confident glare of his own. 

"Actually," he retorts calmly, "I've come to challenge you for the honor."

The words send a ripple of shock throughout the ring of vampires surrounding him and even Lucifer takes a startled step back.

"You _what_?"

Crowley smirks wordlessly, shakes off the restraining hands whose owners are too stunned to put up any kind of fight. "The power the ritual offers is enormous, isn't it," he remarks, nodding toward the altar. "I mean, you've got the power of the centuries here, the invincibility, the near-immortality." He makes a show of breathing in the charged air, closes his eyes briefly as if to savor it. When he opens them again, his gaze is hard, merciless, his voice as he speaks next is raised enough that even the back rows can hear. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't your sole qualification for being the recipient of all that awesome power the fact that you had once managed to drain the Chosen One?"

Lucifer’s cheek twitches angrily but he finds his smile once more, bares his teeth at Crowley. "That's right, _Crawly_ ," he confirms and nods condescendingly at the surrounding crowd. "And I doubt that anyone here can challenge me on that."

Crowley bites the inside of his cheek, sends another silent apology to his friend. "I can," he states, somehow managing to keep his voice firm. Because, Lord knows, his claim is a mere thread away from the truth.

The older vampire narrows his gaze, dark eyes flashing dangerously. "You're joking," he states flatly, lips twisting in disdain. "You can't possibly expect me to believe that you–"

Crowley chuckles, an angry, menacing sound. "No? Wasn't this one of the outcomes you were expecting when you pumped me full of silver and left me locked in a room with a slayer?" Challenges, taking a step right into Lucifer’s space, "Why don't you smell me. The scent of the Chosen One's blood doesn't go away that fast."

The dare works. He can see Lucifer’s nostrils flare as the vampire sucks in the whisper of Aziraphale’s scent that he knows is still hanging around him like a cloak of protection. Can hear the other vamps doing the same, the hushed whispers of admiration rippling through the crowd.

Lucifer growls in frustration at such an overt affront to his hitherto uncontested authority. Desperately, angrily, he tries to win it back. "This has got to be a trick of some kind,” he dismisses loudly, flicking a furious gaze towards his minions who are now busy ogling Crowley. “You honestly expect me to believe that you drained that book-loving friend of yours? After everything you've done to _atone_ for the so-called sins of your past?"

But Crowley knows he's already won that round. So he just smiles calmly in response, lets his face morph effortlessly into the pale mask of the beast within. "Well, you said it yourself, a dying vampire will fight with everything he's got to stay alive," he quotes, digging the sharpened fingernails deep into the skin of his palms as he fights to control the rush of anger he feels at the remembered words. "And you did put such an irresistible cure right in front of me."

The whispers in the crowd grow louder, the other vampires moving back to crowd near the walls, clearing a space for them in anticipation of an impending battle. 

"Come on then," Crowley urges, baring his fangs at his opponent.

And then Lucifer simply does not have a choice.

***

Crowley is no match for Lucifer – he knew as much coming into this fight. The older vampire has a couple hundred years worth of speed and power on him, and right now Crowley is the only thing standing between him and his hitherto unchallenged path to near-omnipotence. And Lucifer is angry, oh so very, very angry….

Crowley lurches sideways, barely avoiding a furious, lightning-fast swipe of the blade-sharp claws that slice the air dangerously close to his throat. He is already sporting deep slash wounds all across his chest and stomach that are losing blood at an alarming rate, weakening him, making him dizzy. A few more minutes of this, and he knows his strength will fail. And then Lucifer will get his wish, become a creature virtually no one on this earth will be able to defeat. And that… it’s unacceptable, that. He can't allow Lucifer to have that kind of power. He won’t. For the sake of humans he has spent so many centuries trying to protect. For the sake of one blond, blue-eyed Slayer that has managed to worm his way into Crowley’s heart and settle there, making himself a permanent home. 

He has to end this. Now.

He digs his teeth viciously into his bottom lip, relying on that sharp pinprick of pain to give his pain-dazed brain a much needed moment of clarity. He isn’t a fighter. Never was. Sure, he’d scored some bloody hits on Lucifer, but they are not enough, not nearly enough to weaken the vampire. Whereas Crowley himself is barely managing to stay on his feet for all the blood he’s lost. He must get closer to do what he needs to do. But Lucifer won’t give him a chance to. And Crowley isn’t strong enough to get where he needs to be through brutal force alone.

But Crowley is clever. _Crawly,_ Lucifer had nicknamed him all those years ago. Said he was wily and slippery like a snake _._ Crowley didn’t mind the nickname at the time – after all, it was his wiles, his natural ability to slip his way out of tight spots that helped him survive. And he hopes (and prays to the God he knows won’t listen) that it helps him now. 

He takes a step back, barely dodging another attack. Feigns a stumble, letting his trembling legs fold underneath him. Lets the momentum carry him down to the rubble-littered floor, landing in a pointedly helpless sprawl on his back. And when Lucifer, drawn in by his apparent weakness, leaps onto his supine form, a clawed arm raised to deliver the final blow, Crowley clenches his fingers tighter around a broken chunk of a brick he’d spotted there earlier, and he swings it at Lucifer’s temple.

It isn’t a strong hit by any means, but it’s enough to stun the older vampire, to knock him – even minutely – off balance. Enough to get him to where Crowley needs him to be.

Crowley drops the brick, wraps his arms and legs around his opponent and twists, flipping them over and pinning the older vampire underneath him. Quickly, before the other has a chance to reorient himself, he pulls one arm away, reaches behind him to where Aziraphale’s dagger rests hidden under the back of his jacket, yanks it out and rams the blade into the side of Lucifer’s neck. 

The vampire gasps in surprise and pain, jerks and bucks underneath him, trying to throw Crowley off. But Crowley coils himself around him like the snake he is purported to be, grips the handle of the dagger tighter, scrunching his nose at the nauseating stench of burning vampire flesh, and leans his weight on it, making a move to slice across.

"Wait," Lucifer rasps out, fear flickering in his eyes for the first time. "You're not going to kill your sire. Are you,… _Anthony_?" 

Crowley shudders inwardly at the reminder of their perverse connection, his hand stilling involuntarily as he fights for control. Lucifer misinterprets his hesitation. 

"You can't, can you," he states with growing confidence, the pale lips pulling once more into a self-assured smile. "You understand, don't you, Anthony. You know the kind of power this ritual will unleash. You are too weak, Anthony, you won't be able to handle it all on your own. You need _me_ for it. I am the only one who ca–"

Crowley swipes his hand to the right, slashing the dagger across the vampire's throat, cutting off his speech on a gasped gurgle. "The last thing I or anyone else in this world _needs_ is an immortal _you_ ," he growls into the stygian eyes below him, watching as the light in them goes out. An instant later, the body he's straddling shudders, stills and collapses in on itself, disintegrating into dust.

For a long, long moment Crowley stays as he is, kneeling on trembling legs and panting like a winded horse. But then he becomes aware once more of the hushed conversations around him, of the thickening darkness of the encroaching night. He looks up past the fire-scorched beams that make up the skeletal remains of the chapel’s roof at the night-black sky, at the perfectly round disc of the moon hanging low above them, tinged an ominous blood red. 

Time. He's running out of time. _Shit_.

He staggers back to his feet, one arm pressed ineffectually against the worst of his wounds. Turns toward the remains of the altar, paying no heed to the agitated voices behind him, his entire focus on the tiny human tied to the improvised cross at its base. 

The boy flinches away from him as far as his restraints allow, whimpering in fear and pain. And Crowley would like nothing more than to reassure him, to tell him that everything's gonna be okay, but the moon is already out, and the ground has already been doused in sacrificial blood, and there just isn't time.

Swiftly, he slices through the bonds, holds the boy up for a brief second as he all but crumples at his feet. The boy stares at him, wide-eyed and disbelievingly hopeful, and for a moment Crowley is reminded of another boy, hundreds of years in the past, who looked at him with that same cautious hope as Crowley coaxed him out from under the bed where the boy had hidden himself, a blood-stained hand held out toward him in a silent offer of protection.

He shakes it off. The haunting parallels, the memory of Warlock’s little arms encircling his neck, the boy shivering against him as they ran through the night, leaving behind the blazing remains of the boy’s former life. Lays a heavy hand on this boy’s – _Adam’s_ – shoulder and shoves him toward the closest hole of a lancet window.

"Run, Adam,” he growls at him even as the ground begins to shake underneath them. “Run, RUN!”

The boy blinks, nods his shaggy, dirty-blond head and bolts away from him, pushing past a thin line of vampires that are too captivated by what is happening behind them to stop him.

And Crowley... Crowley tries to run, too, but his tired, aching body pitches him forward instead, drops him onto his knees into the blood-soaked rubble. And when the ground cracks apart underneath him and a column of blinding white light bursts forth to envelop him, he doesn't even have the strength left to scream. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure I'm particularly happy with how this chapter turned out. I'm always wary of how my action scenes actually look on paper (as opposed to in my head lol). Well, you be the judge. Let me know what you think in the comments. I shall await your thoughts eagerly :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the slayer's expectations aren't met.

Chapter 8

There are certain things Aziraphale expects to see upon regaining consciousness. There are certain things, he thinks, you are entitled to after discovering that your friend (possibly best, possibly even - _dare he hope so?_ \- something much, much more) is an actual bona fide blood-sucking _fiend_ and then proceeding to give said fiend permission to near bleed you dry.

Groveling, for one. Lots and lots of groveling. 

Some hand-holding, perhaps. 

All from Crowley, of course. Remorseful, guilt-stricken Crowley, waiting fretfully at his bedside and willing to cater to his every whim to make up for ... well ... sucking out most of his blood. 

What he did not expect is to wake up on a rickety flower-patterned sofa with a needle in his arm and a red-haired person, who is decidedly _not_ Crowley, staring down at him with friendly curiosity. 

_Marjorie,_ his sluggish brain supplies him. _Marjorie Potts._ But what the devil is he doing in her house? Why would Crowley bring him here? And where, in God’s name, _is_ Crowley? 

He must have said that last bit out loud, for Marjorie’s friendly smile falls, her features darkening with something Aziraphale’s cobweb-wound brain eventually manages to classify as worry. And that worry makes something dark and anxious gnaw at his heart.

He goes to sit up, the movement tugging painfully at the needle, and Marjorie hurries to remove it, tsking her disapproval at his carelessness. But he can see her fretful fussiness for what it is, and the gnawing in his chest becomes stronger still.

“What happened?” he demands, trying to capture her gaze, which she insists on keeping fixed on the bloodied transfusion kit she busies putting away. “Where’s Crowley?”

“Gone.”

The response comes from the other side of him, and he twists toward the sound, nearly toppling off the couch in the process, the faces of his vampire-hunting teammates swimming a bit before him, until he manages to blink the picture back into focus. 

“Gone where?” he growls. 

He almost feels bad for the way Newton flinches at his tone, but the look of anxious contrition on Anathema’s face makes him forget all else. 

_What if they found out that Crowley was a vampire?_ he thinks, frantic. _What if they saw him, a vampire, with a near-dead slayer in his arms and drew all the right (but so,_ so _very wrong) conclusions? What if they….?_

“Where?” he croaks out, needing, but oh so afraid, to know the answer.

She tells him, halting, reluctant, hands twisted together in uncharacteristic nervousness.

And the relief he feels upon learning that they didn’t, in fact, destroy Crowley is swiftly overshadowed by an even greater, more crippling fear.

It bubbles forth from him in a wave of anger.

“How could you let him go?” he seethes, as he pushes himself up and off the couch and takes a couple of unsteady, furious steps toward them. “You should’ve stopped him. You… Why didn’t you stop him?”

“He’s a bloody vampire,” Shadwell throws back at him as if it should be self-explanatory. 

And maybe it should be. _Would_ _have been_ even a few hours ago. But he knows better now. He’d _seen_ better. The others, he thinks, should have seen it, too. Because Crowley brought him here, didn’t he? He could have easily left him to die in that abandoned monastery and no one would have been the wiser. But he didn’t. He brought him here, left himself up to the mercy of vampire hunters just so Aziraphale could get the help he needed. Wasn’t that alone enough to convince them that he was not like other vampires?

“He’s not–” he begins, intent on defending his friend’s name.

“And he asked us not to,” Shadwell continues, holding Aziraphale’s anguished stare. “Said to keep ye here, too.”   
  


“Is that what your plan is then?” Aziraphale looks at each of them, until the stubborn defiance in their answering gazes gives way to shamefaced remorse. “Keeping me here, while Crowley is out there alone on a… a suicide mission?” He takes a step, chest heaving. Growls out in open challenge, “I’d like to see you try.”

He stalks forward, pushing past them, certain that they won’t dare stop him. He doesn’t have time for this nonsense now anyway. He needs to get home. Needs to get his weapons. He needs…. He needs…. Oh, but he doesn’t have the first clue where to go.

The realization makes him falter, his determined steps stumbling to a miserable halt inches away from the door. Where would he go looking for Crowley? Which direction? Where would he even start? What if, by the time he finds him, it will be too late? What if it already is?

“Zira, wait.”

The hesitant call of his name breaks upon the spiraling panic of his thoughts, and he shakes his head without turning, his mouth already forming a denial to what is likely another useless plea for him to stay behind. Because he can’t just sit here and wait. He needs to go out there and look for him. Even if he fails, he needs to _something_ , he needs to have at least tried.

What follows, however, is yet another thing that he does not expect.

“We… _may_ know where he is.”

He whirls back toward Anathema, his gaze wild and desperate and searching.

“Come again?”

“We figured you’d want to go after him, so we’ve been looking at vampire tracking forums while you were, you know….” She gestures awkwardly to the sofa. “There are numerous posts mentioning an uptick in activity near Dartford.”

“Dartford?”

She nods. “We looked it up. There’s a workhouse chapel up in Dartford that was gutted by a fire a few years ago. Been abandoned ever since.”

“Desecrated hallowed ground,” Newton adds, and it sounds like a quote, sounds like something Crowley would say.

“Dartford,” Aziraphale repeats, the word tumbling out in a choked, strangled breath. It’s far away, it’s still quite a drive, but it’s a destination. He knows where to go now. And it’s more than he could have hoped for. “I… thank you. _Thank_ _you_!”

“Gonna need yer weapons, too, won’t ye?”

He blinks in open-mouthed shock as Shadwell reaches behind the sofa to pick up a large tartan duffle bag – _his_ large tartan bag. 

“Gonna need us there, too,” Shadwell adds in that same surly tone, sliding the bag over to Aziraphale. “No way we’re letting ye go up against them filthy beasts by yerself.”

“Right,” Aziraphale manages past an uncomfortably swollen throat and heaves the bag over his shoulder. “Let’s head out.”

***

Aziraphale is an optimist. Tries to be, at the very least. It’s hard sometimes, what with the death and violence that follows him in his capacity as slayer, and with his family’s disapproving condescension that marks his every choice. But he does try.

He’s trying now, too. Despite the fear that gnaws at his heart, threatening to undo all of his pitiful attempts to remain hopeful. Fear that too much time has already passed, that they are already too late, that Crowley is already gone. He can't let himself go there. He can’t. He _won't_. So he grips his bag tighter to hide the tremor of his fingers and he trains his eyes harder on the road ahead of them, willing for the chapel’s fire-ravaged rafters to appear before them around the next bend. And he tries not to notice how his own fear is reflected on Newton’s face, or the worried looks that Anathema is throwing his way, or the expression of grim determination on Shadwell’s face as he hugs that vicious-looking thundergun of his. And he desperately, desperately tries not to think about what they'll find once they get there.

And then they do get there, screeching to a halt in front of the gutted carcass of the chapel. And he grabs another silver dagger from his bag and jumps out of the car, his feet already carrying him forward even as he tries to glimpse sight of his friend through the glassless lancet windows.

And stops dead in his tracks when a small body tumbles out of the closest window and sprints toward him at a limping, desperate run. 

He oomphs in surprise as the body – _the boy_ , his mind recognizes, _Adam_ – hurtles himself into his arms with a choked off sob. He staggers back a step, arms tightening involuntarily around the boy, even as he looks back toward the chapel in the ridiculous hope that Crowley would come running out of there next.

An instant later a tremendous explosion rocks the ground the chapel stands on, the force of it throwing him off his feet like a ragdoll. A blinding column of power bursts forth from within the chapel, expanding upwards and outwards until it enfolds all of the building, hiding it completely from view. 

He hugs Adam tighter, covering the boy’s face with his hand. Squeezes his eyes shut against the blinding, searing glow. But he can still see it burns even past his closed eyelids, can still feel the scorching heat of it on his skin, can hear the screams – Adam’s, his teammates’, the vampires’, his own.

And then it's all over, just as abruptly as it had begun, and Aziraphale dares to blink his eyes open once more, squinting myopically past the residual blurriness of his vision. 

And gasps.

The chapel is gone. Reduced to nothing more than a smoking rubble of centuries-old stones. Empty, save for a solitary figure sitting hunched over on his knees in the midst of scorched ruins and ashes that float about him in the gentle breeze. 

_Crowley_.

“Crowley.”

Swiftly, he releases his hold on Adam. Staggers back to his feet, his eyes drinking in the sight of his friend. He looks… awful, to be sure. Deep, ragged wounds crisscrossing his torso, blood marring the pale skin. So, _so_ much blood. But he’s there, and he’s moving, and he’s alive, alive, _alive_! 

“CROWLEY!”

He makes a move to rush toward the bowed figure and staggers in place as a strong hand grips his shoulder, pulling him back. “Don't!”

“What?” He whirls on Shadwell and nearly chokes at the sight of the thundergun in the man’s other hand, the thundergun aimed squarely at Crowley. “What are you doing? What, in Heaven’s name, are you doing?"

But Shadwell’s nodding past him, his aim never wavering. "I remember what yer vampire friend said, Mister Fell," he bites out through clenched teeth. "All that energy, all that power.... He said that other vampire wanted it so he could become the most powerful creature on this here Earth, one no human would be safe from.” He spears Aziraphale with a dark, pointed stare. “And now your friend might be the one who’s got all that power in him.” 

Shadwell trails off, expectant, and Aziraphale stumbles away from him, shaking his head in denial. Because it's Crowley he’s talking about. _Crowley_. And Crowey is no Lucius. Crowley doesn't have an evil bone in his body, even in his vampire form. Aziraphale knows that. Is _sure_ of that. He opens his mouth to tell Shadwell so, but the words stick in his throat, because at that very moment he chances a look back toward the ruins of the chapel and finds Crowley looking straight at him, his formerly warm, amber-gold eyes now black, soulless pits like the ones that stared back at him from Lucius’ face. Cold, foreign, evil. 

Slowly, the vampire rises from his knees, those terrible, alien eyes narrowing, as if he somehow _heard_ them, _heard_ Shadwell’s hushed words from almost 30 meters away. And between one heartbeat and the next he’s suddenly right there before them, and Aziraphale hasn’t even seen him move. 

He tosses Aziraphale aside like he weighs nothing more than a feather. Swipes at Shadwell, knocking the thundergun out of the man's hands and sending its owner crumpling to the ground, cradling his broken forearm. 

A silver arrow whooshes through the air toward him, but Crowley captures it with terrifying ease, crushing the shaft between his fingers even as he takes a step toward Newton who’s trying to notch another arrow into his crossbow with badly shaking hands. 

“Don’t you touch him,” Anathema growls at Crowley, slipping protectively in front of Newton, a silver-loaded gun raised threateningly before her. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

The vampire pauses. Cants his head to one side as if considering her words. Then smiles an awful, empty smile and takes another step closer. 

Anathema’s finger tightens on the trigger.

“STOP!”

Aziraphale scrambles to his feet and jumps in between them, his back to Anathema, to the deadly weapon aimed at Crowley’s heart. 

He can’t let her shoot him. Not yet. Not until he’s certain that no hope remains of getting Crowley, _his Crowley_ , back. And even then… even then, it should not be Anathema’s job to do it. It should be… it _has_ _to be_ his.

He raises his left hand, places it firmly on Crowley’s chest, keeping his other one behind his back, fingers clenched around the handle of the silver dagger, praying he won't have to use it. 

“Look at me, Crowley,” he says, struggling not to flinch when those black, inhuman eyes burrow into his, devoid of recognition. “It’s me, Crowley. _Aziraphale_. You know me. _Please_." 

“Slayer,” the vampire growls in response. He grabs Aziraphale by the wrist, squeezing it until the bones there crack under the impossible pressure. Then yanks him flush toward him, those cold, soulless eyes flitting hungrily to the slayer’s neck. Tilts his head toward it, fangs bared in preparation.

“Don’t,” Aziraphale pleads, straining to pull away even as those deadly fangs scrape probingly against his skin. “You don’t wanna hurt me, Crowley. You know me. You _know_ me.”

He jolts, his breath hitching as two sharp points of pain pierce his skin. Behind him Anathema spits out a heartfelt curse, stepping around him to once again bring up her weapon. On the other side of him Newton does the same. 

And this is it, he thinks, his fingers tightening on the dagger even as his heart twists in despair and his soul cries out in mourning. Crowley’s gone. Truly and irreparably gone. It’s too late. He failed him, failed both of them. It’s over. 

He brings the dagger forward, tears welling in his eyes at the thought of what he is about to do. 

But suddenly Crowley goes rigid against him, and Aziraphale can hear him inhale, long and deep, against the side of his neck. Can feel a shudder go through him an instant before the fangs slide out of Aziraphale’s skin and the vampire stumbles back a step, staring wide-eyed at the bite marks on Aziraphale’s neck before shifting his gaze up to the slayer’s face. 

And Aziraphale nearly goes weak-kneed with relief as he sees the awful blackness bleed out of Crowley’s eyes, their color shifting gradually back to the familiar golden hue. 

“A… angel?”

Crowley’s fingers unclasp from around Aziraphale’s wrist, his hand falling limply away as he sways a bit drunkenly, his chest heaving with labored, panting breaths. 

“Angel… I….” He blinks, slowly, sluggishly, his gaze becoming unfocussed. Sways once again. “…I don’t feel….”

And it’s all the warning Aziraphale gets before the vampire’s legs fold suddenly underneath him, and he collapses like a stringless puppet at his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for leaving you with another cliffie. My bad )) I think (I THINK) I can promise that this would be the last one?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein conversations are had.

Chapter 9

“He’s gonna be okay.”

He raises his head at the quiet words, his gaze snapping briefly over to the door where Anathema stands, hovering in awkward indecision.

He turns his head away.

“Become an expert on vampire physiology, have you,” he snarls, but there’s no bite to his words, just an overwhelming, worry-tinged weariness that comes with a long, sleepless night. With sitting helplessly by as Crowley moaned and cried in restless oblivion, his fever-wracked body twisting and thrashing in the bed, sharp claws shredding the tangled sheets, gouging the mattress underneath. 

It’s ruined, the mattress is. As are the sheets. Aziraphale couldn’t care less. He just needs the person tangled in that shredded mess to survive. He needs to hope that that’s possible. He really, really does.

He sighs, twisting his fingers together. Shakes his head in silent apology. 

“I’m sorry, Ana,” he murmurs. “I know how you all must hate him after what happened. I… I must admit I was quite shaken myself when I found out that the person I had begun to consider my closest, dearest friend turned out to be one of the monsters I’ve been born to hunt. But the truth of it is….” He reaches for Crowley’s hand, limp now that another one of those awful episodes has passed. Runs his fingers reverently along the pale skin. “…the truth is that _what_ he is doesn’t change a thing. He’s still Crowley, still the kindest, most selfless person I know. And seeing him like this… in so much pain…. I… I’m just....” He looks back up at her, his vision swimming with tears of helpless anguish. “It’s torture.”

She moves further into the room, settles gingerly on a chair beside him.

“Did I tell you about Agnes?” she asks, seemingly apropos of nothing.

Aziraphale blinks. “Your great-great-great….” He trails off, his eyes widening as he remembers the conversation he and Crowley had at that abandoned monastery what seems like ages ago. “Agnes!” he breathes, searching Anathema’s face for clues. “Crowley mentioned an Agnes. Is she… she can’t be. Is she?”

Anathema smiles, nods. “I didn’t connect the dots either,” she says. “Not right away. She calls him Anthony, you see, in her diary. She describes him well enough, it’s all quite detailed. But it honestly wasn’t until he brought up the boy that it clicked for me.”

“The boy? The… the one he’d saved from Lucius all those years ago?”

“Warlock,” she supplies with another smile. Then she flicks a glance at Crowley and her smile falls, her face tightening in a sympathetic frown. “How much has he told you about the night he rescued Warlock?” 

Aziraphale shrugs. Crowley wasn’t really in any state to be delving into detailed conversations at the time. The bits he did divulge were disjointed and garbled at best. 

“Not much,” he hedges, trying to piece together a more or less solid picture from the memory of Crowley’s halting, gasped out account. “Lucius meant to use the boy for the ritual. Crowley was sent after him along with some others. He… Crowley, that is, changed his mind, I suppose. Decided to save the boy instead. And he… I guess he brought the boy to Agnes so she could hide him.”

Anathema hums, lips pursed. Shifts her gaze to Aziraphale. “Did he tell you he almost died then?”

“He…. N-no… he didn’t.”

Anathema nods in understanding. Reaches into her purse, takes out a time-yellowed book, its gold-embossed leather cover bearing the stains of its long existence. “Agnes writes about finding him collapsed on her doorstep with a little boy in his arms,” she says, placing the book in her lap with all the reverence due a centuries-old treasure. “There was so much blood on both of them, she thought them dead until she tried to pick the boy up and he wouldn’t let go of the vampire. Clung to him like a little octopus, screaming his head off.”

She huffs, running her fingers carefully over the embossed letters on the cover.

“He was fine, by the way, the boy was. Not a scratch on him. Your friend, on the other hand…. According to Agnes, his injuries were so severe that he was too weak to feed. Agnes ended up having to slaughter one of her goats, drain its blood into a bowl and then spoon-feed it to him.” 

She looks up, meeting Aziraphale’s wide-eyed gaze. Smiles ruefully. “Can you imagine? Spoon-feeding a vampire?”

Aziraphale can’t. All Aziraphale can do is grip Crowley’s hand tighter still as he tries to force his too-dry throat to work. “He told me he was injured,” he manages to croak out. “He didn’t say it was this bad.”

Anathema places her hand on Aziraphale’s knee, squeezes it lightly. “He survived,” she points out with a gentle, comforting smile. “That’s what’s important. He survived then, and he’ll survive now. He’s strong enough, you have to believe that.”

Aziraphale shakes his head, swallows around a heavy, uncomfortable lump. “Back then he confronted a group of vampires from his own coven and, according to what you just told me, nearly died,” he says in a raspy, hollow voice. “Now he’s trying to fight his way through legions of those beasts, centuries’ worth of supernatural power that wants to control him. And there’s nothing, absolutely nothing I can do to help him. How can you look at him and claim he’s strong enough?” He flaps his free hand toward Crowley, who lies there, insensate, breathing in raspy, shallow gasps, his pale face – too pale even for a vampire – twisted in a grimace of terrible pain even in unconsciousness. “How can you possibly–”

“Because he’s fighting to get back to _you_ ,” she cuts in, firm and sure. “He knows you’re here, Zira. He knows your scent, he knows your voice. He’s broken through for you once back there in Dartford. He’ll be able to do it again. You just have to believe in him.”

He squeezes his eyes shut against a prickle of tears, nods tightly. “How do you know so much?”

“Agnes.”

He startles when he feels her place something in his lap. Opens his eyes to stare in bewildered wonder at the ancient leather-bound book.

“You should read some of what she says about your friend,” Anathema says, patting him encouragingly on the knee even as he rests a hesitant, trembling hand on the dark-green cover. “Might find it interesting.”

She stands, moves to walk away. But then she stops suddenly, turns back toward him.

“For the record,” she begins, meeting his tear-washed gaze with a steady, sympathetic one of her own, “I don’t hate him. None of us do. Well,” she amends with a tilt of her head, “Mister Shadwell might be a wee bit pissed, but it’s mostly because the cast makes it hard for him to light his pipe. B’sides, I think he quite enjoys all the attention Marjorie’s been bestowing upon him since that incident.” She shakes her head, smirking at some memory she chooses not to divulge. “Point is,” she concludes, “we’re all here for you, Zira. Both of you. You need to know that.”

She walks out before Aziraphale can force his too-too tight throat to work out a response.

***

He surfaces to a sweet scent of cocoa and old books, a gentle rustle of pages, the steady thrum of a familiar heartbeat nearby. It feels like a dream, a beautiful, untarnished dream – unattainable after the inescapable nightmare of his memories. And, suddenly, he desperately, _desperately_ doesn't want to wake up.

“I know you're awake, Crowley,” a dear voice chides beside him, “so you might as well open your eyes.”

Briefly, childishly he considers pretending a little while longer. Keeping his eyes shut, slowing his heartbeat and breathing down…. He could use more rest, too. His body still feels like it’s been put through the ringer. His head is heavy, thoughts thick as molasses. His mouth dry as the desert sand. 

But he knows he needs to face his demons some time. Might as well get it over with. 

Slowly, he peels his eyes open, takes in the intimately familiar confines of Aziraphale’s bedroom, the sunlight streaming through the open window, Aziraphale himself sitting on the chair next to the bed, watching him with a mixture of tired relief and worry.

“There you go.” Aziraphale smiles down at him, weary but happy. “How are you feeling, my dear?”

Crowley looks away from the open, undeserved joy in those tired blue eyes. Shifts his gaze downwards instead and freezes at the sight of a cast around his friend’s wrist. A memory surfaces, vivid and brutal: of his own hand encircling that wrist, squeezing it, crushing the delicate bones. 

He swallows tight against a swell of nausea, tears his gaze away from the damning evidence of his vile nature like the wretched coward that he is. He did this. _He. Did. This._

“You shouldn’t be here,” he rasps out.

“Is that so?” Aziraphale scoffs. “And why, pray tell, have you come to such conclusion?” 

He proceeds to lean over Crowley, reaching out to press the back of his hand against Crowley’s forehead. And Crowley stills momentarily, frozen like a fawn in the crosshairs, as another memory, a memory of a life he’d thought long forgotten, floats to the forefront of his fevered mind, catching him unawares. A memory of himself as a little boy not much older than Warlock was when he’d found him; of lying in bed sick on a blistery winter morning; of his mother tsking in worried disapproval as she rests her hand on his forehead to check his fever….

He jerks back without conscious thought and winces at the wounded look on Aziraphale’s face.

“You need to stay away from me, angel,” he repeats, trying to force a bit of a growl into his reed-thin voice. “I mean it.”

Aziraphale’s mouth pinches into a thin, unhappy line. “Why would I do that?”

Crowley stares up at him, incredulous. Pushes himself up into a sitting position. “You’re so clever,” he murmurs with a disbelieving headshake. “How can someone as clever as you be _so_ stupid?” 

Aziraphale rears back, face twisted in an expression of shocked outrage as he opens his mouth to respond.

Crowley doesn’t give him a chance to.

“I’m a monster, Zira,” he points out, brutal and bitter. “I think I’ve proven that well enough.”

Aziraphale squares his shoulders, chin raised in challenge. “And how did you prove that… exactly? Was it by rescuing Adam? Or Warlock, perhaps? Or myself… more times than I could count? Or was it, perhaps, risking your life to save all of humanity?”

There are undercurrents of anger in the sarcastic retort, and that anger is exactly what Crowley deserves. Anger is what he can deal with. So he takes it, willingly. Pours more oil onto that fire.

“I almost killed you,” he hisses, shifting forward to bare his fangs in Aziraphale’s face – a potent reminder. “I nearly drained you dry.” 

Aziraphale pales but doesn’t pull away like Crowley expects him to. Doesn’t flinch in fear and disgust at the sight of Crowley’s vicious-looking fangs.

“You did,” he acknowledges in a voice as calm as if he were discussing the weather. “And I forgive you.”

Crowley lets out a low, helpless growl. Pushes to his feet to stalk past Aziraphale. Begins to pace agitatedly across the bedroom floor.

“How… how can you be so calm about this? How can you–”

“Because you stopped.” Aziraphale stands, too, then. Takes a small, careful step in Crowley’s direction, hands held out before him in an unthreatening gesture. “You _stopped_ , Crowley. You were near death, and you still managed to stop. And, if you recall, I _allowed_ you to drink my blood. Insisted on it, in fact.”

Crowley stops his pacing. Stumbles backwards from Aziraphale’s slow approach, his gaze drifting unerringly to the cast around Aziraphale’s wrist.

“And what about _this_?” he asks, nodding at Aziraphale’s injury. “Did you _allow_ me to do this to you, too? Did Shadwell _allow_ me to break his arm?” He runs his hands through the hopelessly tousled mess of his hair, tugging viciously on the tangled locks. "God, Zira, I could have killed all of you back there. I still _might_! I…. All that power, the blood lust…. I couldn’t control myself. I’m _dangerous_ , don’t you understand?"

Aziraphale closes the distance between them in two swift strides. Curls his good hand around Crowley’s, gently but insistently pulling it down. “I’m not worried,” he says with that same infuriating calm. “You were able to overcome centuries' worth of supernatural power that was forced upon your person. Do _you_ understand how amazing that is? How amazing _you_ are? How unique?”

He smiles up at Crowley – a small, tremulous thing that still somehow manages to light up Crowley’s whole world. “There has never been a vampire in the history of this Earth that has managed to hold on to their humanity like you have, Crowley. Not ever. You’re… you’re truly one of a kind, my dear.”

He loosens his grasp on Crowley’s hand, short plump fingers just barely brushing the vampire’s skin, but Crowley doesn’t pull his hand away. Stays where he is, ensnared by this ephemeral touch.

“Do you know what was the first thing I did when Anathema told me where you’d gone?” Aziraphale whispers, blue eyes holding his gaze – a warm, enchanting tether. “I panicked. I panicked, Crowley, because I thought that I would never see you again. That you went off on that stupid, _stupid_ suicide mission and I would never get to tell you how much you mean to me.”

“Angel….” Crowley’s throat is painfully, suffocatingly dry. His hand trembles in Aziraphale’s grasp.

“I love you, Crowley.”

Aziraphale’s fingers tighten once more around his wrist, his voice gentling in contrast. And he sounds sure, so sure that Crowley’s useless heart momentarily stutters to a halt before resuming a maddening, frantic beat against his ribs.

“I love you, and I can’t stand the thought of losing you.”

“I almost killed you, Zira,” he croaks out, his voice cracking as he tries so very, very hard to keep himself together. Because he feels like it needs to be pointed out again. Because he still remembers the terrifying red haze that had descended upon him, cloaking and stifling his consciousness. Remembers the surge of incredible power that coursed through his veins; the knowledge that he could crush the puny humans before him with nothing more than a flick of his wrist, the near-overwhelming desire to do just that.... “You… you can’t possibly l-love....”

“I do.” Aziraphale’s casted arm comes up, fingers skittering along the fevered skin of Crowley’s face, cool, gentle, soothing. “I do, very much. Besides….” He smiles once again, wider, warmer. “…you know what they say, it’s not _almost_ , it’s what you _actually do_ that matters.”

“Like breaking yours and Shadwell’s bones?” he tries again and yelps in surprise as Aziraphale tugs sharply on his hand and pulls him into his arms.

“Agnes was right,” Aziraphale tsks affectionately, his good arm holding Crowley close as the vampire melts into the unexpected embrace with a choked off sob, shuddering in the open, overwhelming warmth of it. “You really _are_ an infuriatingly stubborn old fool.” The arm around Crowley tightens, the embrace becoming desperate almost. The voice that rumbles against his ear grows brittle, raw with emotion. “And I cannot imagine my life without you. So, please, don’t ever force me to try.”

Crowley closes his eyes, nuzzling into Aziraphale’s shoulder, inhaling the slayer’s smell, the smell that had broken through the red haze of ancient power that had been controlling him, that helped him harness that power, helped him wrestle the beast back under control.

He clings to him just as desperately, just as tightly, his breath hitching as he tries to valiantly to regain control, to rein in the tears that seem intent on spilling past his tightly closed lids. But it’s no use. It’s no use. Because something had cracked open inside him at Aziraphale’s fervent, earnest confession. As though an iron vise that had clamped itself around his heart ever since Aziraphale found out about his true nature snapped open at these words, allowing him to take his first real deep breath.

“I won’t,” he manages to rasp out, giving up on trying to stop the tears. Focusing instead on the feel of Aziraphale’s arms around him, the smell of his skin, the beating of his heart. “I won’t. I… Oh, angel, I love you, too.”

***

“Well, this didn’t quite go as planned, did it.”

“You’re blaming _me_ for this?” Hastur cocks a disbelieving eyebrow at the posh bastard sitting across from him. “Your brother was supposed to come alone… _Gabriel_.”

The dark-haired man leans forward, elbows on the table. “First of all, _Mister La Vista_ ,” he drawls out, violet eyes narrowing in warning, “I will thank you to address me as Mr. Fell. I can’t stand presumptuous familiarity.” He twists his lips in a disgusted sneer. “Especially from your kind. And secondly, when you called me to report on your progress, you said, and I quote, ‘We got it all taken care of’. So explain to me, please….” He drops his voice to a low, menacing rumble. “…how _this_ is taking care of it!”

Hastur winces at the rising volume. Reminds himself yet again that he needs this irritating human for now. He doesn’t have anything right now. No contacts, no connections. All he’s got are his gut instincts. The ones that got him hightailing it out of the thrice-damned chapel when things started to go to shit, escaping permanent destruction by the skin of his teeth. And his instincts are telling him that this human can be useful to him if he plays his cards right. So he curls his hands into fists and he pulls his fangs back in.

“I told you,” he growls. “There was an unexpected problem.”

“An unexpected problem. You mean that nuisance of a vampire your lot have been trying to kill for the past 400 years? The one that managed to destroy your entire coven and then some?”

Hastur’s palms sting where the nails that have long since sharpened into claws have pierced the skin. “Crawly will be dealt with.”

“Oh?” Gabriel gives him an unimpressed look. “And who will be dealing with him then? If I’m not mistaken, your boss is currently nothing more than a sad pile of ashes on the floor of some decrepit English church.”

“Me.”

“You?”

The human outright laughs at him now. It takes all of Hastur’s willpower not to jump across the table and snap the bastard’s neck.

“Yes,” he hisses. “And you.” His cheek twitches, lips curling into a predatory, sharp-toothed smile. “I have a plan.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I did promise no more cliffhangers. Though I now realize that the end of this chapter might actually BE one? 🤔 Oh, well, if it is, it's not that bad of one, right? Just a wee bit ominous. Just some dark forces working in the shadows to wreak havoc on our unsuspecting heroes.... Welp... never mind. I guess it is that bad lol Sorry.
> 
> On a lighter note, thank you SOOOOO much to everyone who read and commented on this story! You, guys, have been amazing! Mwah 💖


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